Despite the potential effectiveness of the DLM(Dynamic Late Merge) control, itsindependent system without the VSL(Variable Speed Limit) control may bring aboutsignificant speed variation because of the frequently changing merge strategies undertime-varying traffic conditions. Thus, to facilitate the merging maneuvers and minimizepotential collisions during the DLM operation, this study has developed a system controlprocess that can integrate the VSL with the DLM so as to maximize the totaleffectiveness of the highway work-zone operation. The proposed integrated controlprocess has used the optimal VSL control model as a supplementary strategy of the entireDLM operation, and coordinated the sequence of VMS messages generated from theDLM and VSL algorithms. From the simulation experiment, the integrated algorithm ofthe DLM and VSL controls has shown to respond well to time-varying traffic conditionsand yielded more work-zone throughputs than the DLM control without VSL. It has alsodemonstrated that the integrated control results in an increase in the average speed and adecrease in the speed variation. In particular, the VSL effect is evident as asupplementary role for the dynamic merge control under the fluctuating traffic demandpatterns.
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