Analytical evaluation of flexible-sharing strategies on multimodal arterials

This paper examines strategies that allocate road space between modes of transport in a flexible and dynamic manner at a link or a node of an arterial by moving buses in front of the car queues without continuously banning cars from using one full lane. These strategies are collectively referred to as flexible-sharing strategies, and are modelled parsimoniously using a single parameter to describe their performance at the local level. This model provides a solid building block to examine these strategies at large infrastructure levels. We build an analytical framework with input-output systems and fixed set theory to evaluate bimodal arterials with flexible-sharing strategies implemented at multiple locations. Using this framework, the performance of a bimodal arterial is quantified by a set of vehicle throughput. This set is convex with linear constraints, which can be used to solve optmization problems on bimodal arterials. The requirements to efficiently identify links and nodes to install flexible-sharing strategies along a bimodal arterial are mathematically established. Lastly, one particular flexible-sharing strategy, the pre-signal, is illustrated as an example both mathematically and with a calibrated simulation.