Assessment of Environmental Impacts of Conflict-Reducing Traffic Control Strategies on the Arterial Streets

Abstract

Historically, flexible lane management has been underutilized in mitigating traffic congestion, despite its potential to increase traffic flow capacity. Recent studies have explored strategies integrating flexible lane management and reservation-based traffic control to enhance safety and efficiency. However, these studies neglected to evaluate the environmental aspect of such lane management. This paper conducts an environmental assessment of strategies that reduce conflicts at intersections. A representative conflict-reducing traffic control scheme is evaluated using the Comprehensive Modal Emission Model (CMEM) and is compared to conventional fixed-time signal control and Fully Reservation-based Intersection Control (FRIC). The results indicate that schemes that move conflicts away from the intersection and distribute them along the link: (a) surpass other control methods in fuel consumption reduction, and (b) lead to decreased emission scenarios at the network level compared to FT and FRIC. These findings underscore the potential environmental benefits of adopting conflict-reducing strategies on urban arterials.