3 ms·

I thought of that yesterday when they turned on these new meters on I5 that seemed to do nothing. One thing the DoT could do to assuage our negative feelings i

I thought of that yesterday when they turned on these new meters on I5 that seemed to do nothing. One thing the DoT could do to assuage our negative feelings is put the methodology out in the public after it's implemented. Show how the sausage is made, if you will. Then again, it's probably people who would otherwise be predisposed to looking up how a simulation would run in this case that would be less likely to whine in the first place. So it probably doesn't really matter, other than on principle.

joshuahutt 11y ago
Why not open-source the methodology before it's implemented? They might get good feedback.
stephen_g 11y ago
Are you talking about ramp metering? If so, I was involved in a trial in Melbourne, Australia on a major highway there. In peak times, it can actually improve travel times by 50% and massively reduce congestion around the choke points you get just ahead of on-ramps. It depends on what algorithm they use to determine timing though - this was a coordinated, dynamic algorithm, but sometimes they are just manually set which isn't as good.
- remarkEon 11y ago
  I am! Do you have any datasets that you can release that I could look at? Or what the algorithms looked like? I'd love to be armed with some real facts the next time I get annoyed or my coworkers start complaining.
  - stephen_g 11y ago
    Here's the best one I can find: http://ersilia.net/origami/docs/vicroads.pdf http://ersilia.net/origami/docs/vicroads.pdf Up to 58% increase in average speed in one test, which was probably the figure I was thinking of (it was a while ago!)
Anechoic 11y ago
One thing the DoT could do to assuage our negative feelings is put the methodology out in the public after it's implemented. It likely is public - there may be an environmental assessment (EA), Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) or Environmental Impact Report (EIR) that will have an appendix containing the detailed traffic engineering study behind the metering. It's probably based on MUTCD guidelines [0]. Assuming you are referring to I-5 through CA, a Google search for "california ramp metering study" brings up a lot of studies and documentations sponsored by Caltrans. [0] http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/htm/2009/part4/part4i.htm http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/htm/2009/part4/part4i.htm
- remarkEon 11y ago
  I'm actually referring to I-5 up here south of Seattle...right outside JBLM where I work. I have looked and unfortunately I haven't found anything. I did find a bunch of stuff that talks about ramp metering at large, but nothing specifically about the on-ramps here that just got metered. Anecdotally, traffic inside JBLM has been significantly negatively effected because of this. I read in another comment that ramp metering speeds up traffic on the freeway...I really hope that's the case. Because it's really annoying to sit in my car while trying to leave and I hope I get to make that up on the aggregate. And to my earlier point...it isn't immediately clear that I will...because the methodology isn't open.

joshuahutt 11y ago

Why not open-source the methodology before it's implemented? They might get good feedback.

stephen_g 11y ago

Are you talking about ramp metering? If so, I was involved in a trial in Melbourne, Australia on a major highway there. In peak times, it can actually improve travel times by 50% and massively reduce congestion around the choke points you get just ahead of on-ramps. It depends on what algorithm they use to determine timing though - this was a coordinated, dynamic algorithm, but sometimes they are just manually set which isn't as good.

remarkEon 11y ago
I am! Do you have any datasets that you can release that I could look at? Or what the algorithms looked like? I'd love to be armed with some real facts the next time I get annoyed or my coworkers start complaining.
- stephen_g 11y ago
  Here's the best one I can find: http://ersilia.net/origami/docs/vicroads.pdf http://ersilia.net/origami/docs/vicroads.pdf Up to 58% increase in average speed in one test, which was probably the figure I was thinking of (it was a while ago!)

Anechoic 11y ago

One thing the DoT could do to assuage our negative feelings is put the methodology out in the public after it's implemented. It likely is public - there may be an environmental assessment (EA), Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) or Environmental Impact Report (EIR) that will have an appendix containing the detailed traffic engineering study behind the metering. It's probably based on MUTCD guidelines [0]. Assuming you are referring to I-5 through CA, a Google search for "california ramp metering study" brings up a lot of studies and documentations sponsored by Caltrans. [0] http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/htm/2009/part4/part4i.htm http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/htm/2009/part4/part4i.htm

remarkEon 11y ago
I'm actually referring to I-5 up here south of Seattle...right outside JBLM where I work. I have looked and unfortunately I haven't found anything. I did find a bunch of stuff that talks about ramp metering at large, but nothing specifically about the on-ramps here that just got metered. Anecdotally, traffic inside JBLM has been significantly negatively effected because of this. I read in another comment that ramp metering speeds up traffic on the freeway...I really hope that's the case. Because it's really annoying to sit in my car while trying to leave and I hope I get to make that up on the aggregate. And to my earlier point...it isn't immediately clear that I will...because the methodology isn't open.