Variable speed limit control strategy for accident management on Taiwan freeway

Reduced capacity due to lane closure is inevitable while an incident occurs on the highway, which increases delay and speed variation. The homogeneity of vehicle speeds has been applied as an indicator of road safety, which can be achieved with enforced variable speed limit systems (VSLS). This research discusses 3 control strategies of VSLS during accident on highway. The real traffic and accident data will be collected from the traffic database and inputted to DynaTAIWAN to simulate the real traffic scenario on Taiwan highway for experiments. In terms of the measure of effectiveness (MOE), the adaptive speed limit control can stabilize the vehicle flows, decrease the traffic jam and smooth the variation of vehicle speed. Furthermore, it can also improve traffic congestion by accidents, and enhance the efficiency and safety under the circumstances of expressway and freeway incidents.