Optimization of Highway-Railway Level Crossing in Port Area with Priority of Key Lanes

Abstract

When controling the signal of highway-rail level crossings in the port area, the multi-objective signal optimization model is not applicable due to the cross effect of roads and railways and the priority of incoming vehicles. Therefore, in order to ensure that the inbound truck fleet enters the port directly without being affected by the train when passing through the highway-rail level crossing in the port area, the queuing of vehicles in front of the port needs to be reduced, and the priority should be given to the inbound trucks. Based on the idea of priority on key lanes, this study relies on speed guidance information to guide the fleet to shift reasonably, postpone or early arrive at the railway gate. At the same time, the optimization goal is to minimize the delays at intersections, the number of stops, and the vehicle exhaust emissions. The measured data of road-rail level crossings in Dayaowan Port area of Dalian were selected, and it was re-developed under the VISSIM environment by serial interface to realize signal optimization control under vehicle speed guidance. The original timing plan, multi-objective timing optimization plan and key lanes priority are given to the optimization scheme for simulation experiments. The results show that the multi-objective optimization scheme and the optimization scheme under the priority of key lanes can generally improve the traffic capacity of road-rail level crossings. Compared with the original plan, the optimization plan under the priority of key lanes reduces the delay by 33.3%, the number of stops is reduced by 25%, and the vehicle exhaust emissions are reduced by 31.3%. It proves the effectiveness of the optimization scheme for highway-rail level crossings in the port area under the priority of key lanes, and it is more suitable for highway-rail level crossings.