Evaluation of Freight and Transit Signal Priority Strategies for Improving Transportation Operations in Urban Corridors

Freight transportation is a significant component of the nation’s economy. However, the augmented volume of the freight movements contributed to continuously increasing congestion on the urban road networks, that affects the timeliness and reliability of freight transportation. In addition, congestion has a negative impact on the transit operations as well. Various studies conducted on multi-modal corridors recognized the importance of the simultaneous performance of freight and transit operations. Thus, Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) components, such as Freight Signal Priority (FSP) and Transit Signal Priority (TSP), present traffic operations strategies "shaped" to give priority, reduce delay and travel time, and overall improve the performance of freight and transit movements, respectively. The primary objective of the thesis refers to evaluate possible improvements in freight mobility, while sustaining good transit services and minimizing congestion on the multi-modal corridor, through simultaneous implementation of the FSP and the TSP. The effectiveness of the newly established criteria was evaluated through real-world case study on a micro-simulation platform. The results showed significant improvements on all the vehicle movements.