The effective usage of arterial networks in urban areas is of great importance in our daily life as it influences travel delays, times, costs, and environmental concerns. In recent years, the increasing amount of vehicular traffic has led to frequent traffic jams in urban arterials. Several control strategies have been implemented to increase the efficiency of the existing road networks such as use of dynamic traffic management, use of navigation systems, and application of corporative intelligent transport systems (C-ITS). Most of these control strategies are based on traffic stream models both at a macroscopic and microscopic level, specially traffic stream description models and travel time estimation models. However, all these models are sensitive to the degree of mixed flow condition (i.e., the presence of autonomous vehicles, vehicles with connected devices, heavy vehicles, and other user groups) within the traffic stream. Therefore there is a need to investigate the traffic stream for identifying areas where mixed traffic flow conditions bring a qualitative jump in the level of service. This study will use real time observational data and micro-simulation techniques (e.g., VISSIM) to examine the effect of mixed traffic to understand changes to traffic flow characteristics. Results from this study will help to develop more efficient traffic operational decisions in mixed flow conditions on urban road networks.

Dr Soma Somasundaraswaran

• Professor Ron Ayers

• Australian Centre for Sustainable Business and Development
• School of Civil Engineering and Surveying

• Civil Engineering
• Other Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services

• Doctor of Philosophy (DPHD)
• Doctor of Philosophy (DPHD)
• Master of Research (MRES)