Urban Traffic Signal Control for Fuel Economy (Economie d'Essence Grace a la Commande des Feux de Circulation en Zone Urbaine),

A study was made to determine the influence of two computer-controlled traffic signal timing plans over a given route. The two plans are the existing plan based on SIGRID Signal GRId Design program and TRANSYT Traffic Network Study Tool. The results show that under the TRANSYT timing plan, vehicles encountered fewer stops, saved time and used a slightly smaller amount of fuel than under the existing timing plan. Vehicle fuel consumption was computed using a computer model of a vehicle which used velocity profiles obtained from an instrumented floating car. Single and multiple linear regression analyses were used to determine the relationship between the fuel consumption and the relatively easy-to-measure and statistically stable quantities such as trip time, number of stops and delay time. It was found that fuel consumption could be expressed adequately as a linear combination of trip time, number of stops and delay time. Using only two independent variables showed a combination of delay time and stops to be equally as good as a combination of travel time and stops. When restricted to a single independent variable, any one of them could be used for predicting fuel consumption. Author