Development and Evaluation of Coordinated Traffic Signal Emergency Preemption System

The objective of this O&E Grant is to quantify the operational benefits of preempting an entire corridor for emergency vehicle operations, rather than preempting each individual intersection as the emergency vehicle arrives. Arterial test segments will be selected and characterized for evaluation purposes. A micro-simulation model (in VISSIM) will be the primary evaluation tool. During the reporting period, research activities have included: 1) data collection and micros- simulation model development and calibration; 2) priority rules used to model yielding behavior of general traffic to emergency vehicles achieved in simulation; 3) volume calibration in simulation model completed; 4) controller transition types and measures of effectiveness identified for evaluation; 5) travel time data of emergency vehicles on typical arterials gathered from the fire department database; and 6) hardware in the loop system established, updated and tested for preemption call.