Institute for Transportation

About the research

The researchers at Wichita State University collaborated with the Kansas Department of Transportation’s Traffic Management Center in Wichita, Kansas, to develop an Intelligent Highway Management System (IHMS). The functions of the IHMS were to conveniently extract specific incident-relevant record data from high-dimensional, high-volume time series datasets; autonomously analyze online traffic-related data (e.g., volume and speed) for incident diagnosis/identification; and create autonomous optimization that facilitates traffic control decision making to reduce average incident clearance and traffic recovery time.

The IHMS integrates multiple technologies to improve traffic flow and safety. It also streamlines vehicular operations by managing congested traffic, which has become a major problem, as it leads to issues in safety, productivity, and environmental performance. In this study, the researchers developed a transportation system simulation methodology that could be used to reduce traffic congestion, as well as restore traffic to its normal conditions, by allowing vehicles to reroute and avoid congested roads, in turn dipping the speed profile for a faster and quicker recovery. The created simulation system was customized for the City of Wichita and implemented in Simulation of Urban Mobility (SUMO). Simulation results indicate that this approach reduces traffic congestion, provides for quicker incident recovery, and is a solution to ongoing safety, productivity, and environmental performance issues.

Funding Sources: 
Kansas Department of Transportation
Midwest Transportation Center
USDOT/OST-R ($20,000.00)
Wichita State University ($20,000.00)
Total: $40,000.00

Contract Number: DTRT13-G-UTC37