PREFERENTIAL CONTROL WARRANTS OF LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT MOVEMENTS.

Median Light Rail Transit (LRT) treatment is a special design in which the light rail line is accommodated in an existing wide median of a multilane arterial. Such designs may be used for heavily traveled arterials where signal timings should be carefully studied to maximize the passenger throughput of the system. A common preferential control technique for LRT is traffic signal preemption in favor of the LRT; however, this technique may adversely affect the overall performance of the system. This study investigates preferential control of LRT, using different signal preemption strategies. It also attempts to develop control warrants for these strategies.