In the European Union Road freight transport volume is expected to grow 78% between 2000 and 2030, which results in more trucks on the road network. The worldwide estimated trend shows an increase of 150 million freight vehicles and an increase of 240 million passenger vehicles. The growth of both vehicle classes will have a major impact on the road network and the roads will become congested. Especially in dense urban environments with many intersections. Further, trucks have a detrimental impact on traffic flows, especially at intersections, because of their slow dynamics and large size. In addition, a stopping truck results in higher emissions and fuel consumption compared to a car. However, today’s traffic controllers are not capable of optimizing traffic flow at intersections based on classification of different vehicles. Therefore, it would be beneficial to all vehicles involved if the number of stops for trucks would be reduced to a minimum, by servicing each vehicle class in a different way.
Throughout this research the focus is to develop a signalized intersection controller which is able to reduce the number of stops for trucks, while maintaining an equal level of service for the other modes of transport. Extensive literature studies provided important insights into the development of signalized intersection controllers. A selection of the techniques found in the literature is used to develop a new truck signal priority controller design. The basic idea is to use a weighted traffic light schedule in combination with priority weights to enable truck signal priority. The design is evaluated in a case study and simulated for multiple configurations. This leads to an overview of the performance in terms of the number of stops and vehicle delay.
From the results several conclusions can be drawn on the optimal weight configuration, which is compared to a state-of-the-art model predictive intersection controller. The results showed an reduction of the total number of stops by 751 and total vehicle delay by 304 minutes for trucks over a week (26,6% and 20,4% respectively). While, the total number of stops and total vehicle delay for cars increased, by 155 stops and 201 minutes (0,1% and 0,3% respectively). However, the overall total number of stops and total vehicle delay were reduced by 596 stops and 103 minutes (0,42% and 0,16% respectively). It can be concluded that the proposed truck signal priority controller design can reduce the number of stops for trucks at a signalized intersection, while maintaining the overall traffic flow at least as good as a state-of-the-art model predictive intersection controller.