CONCURRENT USE OF MAXBAND AND TRANSYT SIGNAL TIMING PROGRAMS FOR ARTERIAL SIGNAL OPTIMIZATION

Number of computer programs have been developed for the purpose of optimizing signal timing. All of the current programs, however, have some deficiencies. The TRANSYT program, which is the most widely used, has a good triffic model and optimizes green phase time. However, it does not get a globally optimal solution, optimize phase sequence, or really optimize cycle length. The MAXBAND program, which optimizes arterial bandwidth, does all of the above but is deficient in that green time is not optimized and the traffic model used is oversimplified. It is shown that a feasible way to overcome these deficiencies is to use the MAXBAND program to develop an initial timing plan for TRANSYT. This initial timing plan includes both cycle length and phase sequence optimization. The timing plans produced by the TRANSYT and MAXBAND programs separately were compared with the combined timing plans by using the NETSIM model. The results indicate that a substantial improvement in measures of effectiveness is obtained with the combined timing plans.