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US 50 Integrated Corridor Management – Sacramento Region

9. Quantifiable Safety, Mobility, and Environmental Benefit Projections

The multi-jurisdictional approach to managing the US 50 corridor through ICM would have many benefits to residents in the Sacramento region. First, a performance based ICM approach would provide benefits in the following areas:

  1. Increased people throughput in the US 50 Corridor, which can be observed by the traveling public in terms of reduced travel time and travel time reliability, fuel savings, and reduced emissions.
  2. Improved ability respond to incidents
  3. Upgraded and enhanced detection and communication system will allow transportation system managers to measure and assess roadway performance
  4. Integrated real-time information can be provided to travelers to allow them to make better transportation choices

It is expected that the US 50 ICM project will increase travel time reliability for all corridor users in the Sacramento area. The US Department of Transportation identified ICM project benefits, as shown in Table 6, to be realized in the cities in San Diego, Dallas, and Minneapolis. There is no reason not to believe that the US 50 ICM Project would not improve in the same performance measure areas as San Diego, Dallas, and Minneapolis. The 2014 TASAS data and the 2016 CHP-CAD incident data will be used as the baseline for tracking the performance of US 50 from the improvements in Segments 1 and 2.

Table 6: Projected ICM Project Benefits in San Diego, Dallas, and Minneapolis

Table 6: Projected ICM Project Benefits in San Diego, Dallas, and Minneapolis - Annual Travel Time Savings (Person-Hours) San Diego - 246,000, Dallas - 740,000, Minneapolis - 132,000. Reduction in Travel-Time Variance - San Diego - 10.6%, Dallas - 3%, Minneapolis - 4.4%. Fuel Saved Annually in Gallons - San Diego - 323,000, Dallas - 981,000, Minneapolis - 17,600. Tons of Mobile Emissions Saved Annually (in Tons) - San Diego - 3,100, Dallas - 9,400, Minneapolis - 175

There have been many recent studies that have shown real benefits achieved with: advanced corridor-wide ramp metering system and operations, advanced central control traffic signal operations, advanced proactive incident management operations, advanced corridor traveler information, and ICM deployment.

There have been many additional studies that have recently shown real benefits achieved with: advanced corridor-wide ramp metering system and operations, advanced central control traffic signal operations, advanced proactive incident management operations, advanced corridor traveler information, and ICM deployment. The following are few examples of the study results:

  • Studies have shown that corridor-wide advanced ramp metering systems (such as the coordinated bottleneck algorithm) can increase mainline traffic flows by over 60%, reduce travel times by over 45%, and reduce collisions by nearly 40%, while maintaining less than 3 minutes delay at the ramps. (Source: R. Bertini, 2006)
  • Studies have shown that corridor-wide advanced signal system with signal coordination can reduce delays by 14% to 44% and travel times by 8% to 41%. (Source: IDAS Database)
  • Studies have shown that corridor-wide adaptive signal system can reduce delay over the coordinated signal system by 34% to 76%, reduce travel times by 15% to 55%, stops by 30% to 95%, collisions by 17% to 30%, and fuel and emissions by 20% to 30%. (Source: E. Basic, 2002; R. Chandra, 2012)
  • Studies have shown that corridor-wide advanced incident management programs can reduce queues by 50%, clearance times by 11% to 36%, travel times by up to 25%, reduce collisions by up to 50%, reduce delays by 10% to 45%, and increase traffic throughput by 8% to 22%. (Source: RITA, 2011; Cisco Systems, 2003)
  • Studies have shown that enhanced traveler information system results in benefit to cost ratio of 16:1 to 25:1 and modal shift from car to transit of up to 4%, nearly 8% when travel time savings were greater than 20 minutes. Studies have also shown that motorist who select better routes can reduce their carbon footprint by 20% during their daily commutes. Studies have also shown that customer satisfaction with regional 511 deployment range from 68% to 92%. (Source: RITA, 2011)
  • Studies have shown that ICM deployment with arterial signal integration can result in 246,000 annual person-hours travel time savings, over 10% improvement in travel time reliability, over 300,000 gallons of fuel saved annually, and over 3,000 tons of emissions saved annually, (Source: V. Alexiadis, 2011)

The US 50 ICM deployment will incorporate these elements along the US 50 corridor. The I-15 ICM in San Diego is said to be yielding 10% to 15% mobility performance benefits. With the added advanced features in the US 50 ICM deployment proposed, additional benefits are expected.

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