A Comparative Evaluation of Ramp Metering Controllers ALINEA and PI-ALINEA

This paper aims to evaluate the performance of ramp metering algorithm Asservissement Lineaired` Entrée Autoroutiere (ALINEA) and its extended version Proportional Integral ALINEA (PI-ALINEA). The control algorithms were implemented on a single-ramp section of D-100 freeway in Istanbul. The section was modeled using the microscopic simulation software VISSIM, and the control algorithms were utilized by integrating VISSIM with MATLAB via Component Object Model (COM) interface. The results reveal that ramp metering improves the freeway traffic characteristics along the merge area with Total Time Spent in the network reducing upto 11 % for ALINEA.Both algorithms relatively have the same performance when the location of the bottleneck is not well defined at the downstream of the merging area.