Evaluating Alternative Operations Strategies to Improve Travel Time ...

SHRP 2 L11: Final Report
• updating real-time arrival information for affected routes based on real-time position
information and forecast roadway performance information.
Traveler Responses to the Crash on the Western Loop
How do our four travelers respond?
A software “app” running on Anne’s phone and connected to her calendar has the location of her
meeting and knows her current location through its GPS chip set. It assumes she will be driving
(her selected default mode). In its background processing, the “app” was monitoring the “traffic
alerts” - a service provided by her wireless carrier. When the traffic alert occurs, her “app”
receives the carrier’s privately developed forecast of travel conditions and notifies Anne that her
trip is no longer possible as planned. Anne responds by using her smart phone’s full-feature
navigation function (connected to the metropolitan planning organization’s regional travel options
database). The base map feature of that software shows her three possible SOV-based travel
options (a “fastest available” general purpose lane freeway option, a HOT lane option, and a city
street option), each of which is accompanied by periodically updated expected travel times and
out-of-pocket costs. In the bottom right corner of the screen, she selects the “transit options” button
and is shown two more options, one involving a walk to her closest bus stop and the other a drive
to a park-and-ride, which offers a faster total trip option. Given the importance of the meeting and
her interest in making three other stops on her way home from the meeting, Anne chooses the
HOT lane option and adjusts her schedule to adapt to the new time she must depart to assure that
she arrives on time for her meeting.
Fred is thinking about getting ready for work and accessing the web on-line at his neighborhood
library. He checks the regional operations website and sees the alert about the Western Loop (his
route to work). He doesn’t have the money to take the HOT lane. But, by entering his trip start and
end points on the map and clicking on the bus icon, the regional operations website displays a
second Web page that highlights the bus routes and arrival/departure information he needs to take
the bus to work. A link on the transit page takes him to a late-night dial-a-ride service reservation
page, which allows him to schedule a pick-up at 1:15 AM that will take him to a transit center
located two miles from his work place just in time to catch a bus that will get him home safely and
fairly quickly. He had never explored that late-night option before, but it works well enough that
he may use it regularly to save money now that he knows about it.
Armand is not on-line and his cell phone is turned off. It is his day off and he has been working in
the garden. However, as he prepares to leave, he listens to his radio in his kitchen. (Yes, FM radio
is still alive and well in 2030.) A short news broadcast gets his attention. A crash on the Western
Loop! He uses the computer built into the kitchen cabinets to pull up the state DOTs website
describing freeway congestion, travel times, and options. With two clicks and a couple of
keystrokes, he enters his proposed trip and learns the time and cost that reaching the store will
require. He decides that this trip is not worth the trouble and expense. The store will still be there
on the weekend. Armand goes back to the garden and his tomato plants. In the meantime, the
roadway delay just got one car shorter and the recovery time just got one car faster.
Giovanni’s dispatch system receives the automated crash notification and automatically updates its
expected delivery times for shipments scheduled for the rest of the day using the traffic forecasting
algorithm the vendor of the dispatch system sells with the software. It notifies him that one of his
high priority shipments is likely to miss its guaranteed delivery time. That is an expensive failure
A CONCEPT OF OPERATIONS Page 123