Modeling the Effects of Speed Limit, Acceleration,

and Deceleration on Overall Delay and Traffic

Emission at a Signalized Intersection
Wei Tan 1; Zhi-Chun Li 2; and Zhi-jia Tan 3
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Abstract: This paper proposes a microscopic spatial-temporal method to capture the vehicle movement trajectories at an isolated inter-
section. A bi-objective programming model is presented to minimize the overall delay and emission increment with and without traffic signal
by jointly determining the optimal signal timing and speed limit. The proposed method explicitly incorporates the effects of vehicle speed
limit, acceleration, deceleration, and signal timing on the overall delay (including the delays caused by traffic signal, acceleration, and
deceleration) and emission increment with and without traffic signal control at the intersection. DOI: 10.1061/JTEPBS.0000101.
© 2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: Signalized intersection; Overall delay; Traffic emission; Speed limit; Acceleration and deceleration.

Introduction Stephanopoulos and Michalopoulos 1979). There are seldom theo-

Travel delay and traffic emission are two key concerns in urban
transportation areas. In China, the transportation sector accounted
for roughly 28.8% of total NOx (nitrogen oxide) gas emissions,
and among them, 91.6% came from vehicle emissions (Ministry
Environmental Protection of People’s Republic of China 2014).
Transportation also contributed approximately 32.7% of the total
GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions in the United States (U.S.
Department of Energy 2012). In 2013, the PM2.5 concentration
of 74 major cities in China exceeded 75 μg=m3 , which is twice
higher than the standard of the country. Vehicle emission was
the single biggest source of PM2.5 (fine particles) and contributes
22–34% of PM2.5 in many Chinese megacities (Yu 2013; Dai et al.
2015). Furthermore, travel delay also contributes to the increasing
air pollution problem owing to increasing idling, acceleration, and
braking.
Many previous studies mainly focused on developing models to
evaluate the vehicle delay of signalized intersections and on design-
ing signal control systems. Transportation professionals generally
categorized the vehicle delay at the signalized intersections into
the stop delay and deceleration-acceleration delay. The former is
incurred when a vehicle is idling or fully immobilized, and the latter
is incurred when a vehicle decelerates or accelerates. Two kinds
of models are adopted to investigate the delay of signalized inter-
sections (Dion et al. 2004), including the deterministic or stochastic
queuing models (Webster 1958; Miller 1963; Webster and Cobbe
1966) and the models based on shockwave theory (Rorbech 1968;
1
Ph.D. Candidate, School of Management, Huazhong Univ. of Science
and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China. E-mail: weitan@hust.edu.cn
2
Professor, School of Management, Huazhong Univ. of Science and
Technology, Wuhan 430074, China. E-mail: smzcli@gmail.com
3
Associate Professor, School of Management, Huazhong Univ. of
Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China (corresponding author).
E-mail: zjatan@hust.edu.cn
Note. This manuscript was submitted on January 7, 2017; approved on
June 27, 2017; published online on October 12, 2017. Discussion period
open until March 12, 2018; separate discussions must be submitted for
individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Transportation
Engineering, Part A: Systems, © ASCE, ISSN 2473-2907.
retical models developed to investigate the effect of the deceleration
and acceleration rates. Mousa (2002) proposed a methodology to
estimate the deceleration-acceleration delay based on the actual ve-
hicle trajectory at an isolated intersection. In practice, the ratio of
the overall delay and the stop delay of the intersections is assumed
to be 1.3 (TRB 1985; Olszewski 1993; Quiroga and Bullock 1999).
Recently, traffic emission at intersections as an important per-
formance criterion attracts the increasing attention of researchers.
Liao and Machemehl (1997) developed an aggregate model to es-
timate intersection fuel consumption. Liao (2013) went further to
study the optimal signal setting of an intersection based on the fuel
consumption. In fact, the time delay has a strong relationship with
the traffic emission in a signalized intersection, because both are
related to the speed of the vehicles and signal timing. Coelho et al.
(2005) studied the relationship between the signal control settings
and emissions via experimental data gathered on Highway N6,
connecting the cities of Lisbon and Cascais in Portugal. He found
that the signal control schemes stopping a larger fraction of speed
violators also yield higher emissions. However, the speed control
signals reducing vehicle speed also result in a decrease in relative
pollutant emissions. The fuel consumption and vehicle delay are
two main objectives and are commonly adopted to evaluate the per-
formance of the signalized intersections or general transportation
network (Li et al. 2004; Guo and Zhang 2014). Han et al. (2016)
proposed a robust signal timing optimization model with the con-
straint of the traffic emission. Li and Ge (2014) introduced the
equity issue, together with the traffic emission, into traffic signal
timing problems. Ge et al. (2014) studied the energy sustainable
traffic signal timing problem in a general transportation network
with heterogeneous users.
It is generally accepted that vehicle speed has a significant effect
on traffic emission (Jensen 1995; Andre and Hammarstrom 2000;
Wang et al. 2015). However, deceleration and acceleration also
play a significant role. Pandian et al. (2009) carried out a compre-
hensive review on the relationships of traffic, vehicle, and intersec-
tion characteristics with vehicular exhaust emissions near traffic
intersections. They pointed out that vehicular exhaust emissions
are largely dependent on fleet speed, deceleration rate, acceleration
rate, and queuing time and length (Andre and Pronello 1997;

© ASCE 04017063-1 J. Transp. Eng., Part A: Syst.

J. Transp. Eng., Part A: Systems, 2017, 143(12): 04017063

 Rakha et al. 2000). However, few literature were found to theoreti-
cally deal with both vehicle delay and traffic emission incorporat-
ing the effects of deceleration and acceleration rate. Recently, an
explicit mission model incorporating the effect of deceleration and
acceleration was developed by Nie and Li (2013) and was intro-
duced to capture the routing behavior of eco-drivers who tend to
satisfy emission standards in a network.
In this study, a microscope spatial-temporal method was first
developed to explicitly incorporate the effects of the instantaneous
cruise speed, deceleration rate, acceleration rate of each vehicle,
and signal timing settings at an isolate intersection. The method can
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capture the whole trajectories of the vehicles, including those of
vehicles without a complete stop when traversing the intersection.
This paper is closely related to the studies of Izadpanah et al.
(2009), Cheng et al. (2010), Sun et al. (2015), and Zhang et al.
(2013). Sun et al. (2015) proposed the trajectory-based energy/
emission estimation method using real mobile data. The current
paper aims to develop the analytical trajectory-based formulation
to investigate the overall delay and emissions at the intersection.
Zhang et al. (2013) adopted the cell transmission model to capture
the traffic flow dynamics and built the cell emission rate associated
with the driving mode of vehicle. The discretized model is efficient
to investigate the signal timing optimization problem for coordi-
nated signal control along arterials to minimize traffic delay and
roadside air pollutant concentrations. Differentiating from the
method proposed by Zhang et al. (2013), the continuous model is
proposed to capture the trajectory of each vehicle, and the emission
rate is directly defined as a joint function of the instantaneous speed
and acceleration/deceleration. In addition, the method can model
the physical queuing phenomenon. With the method, the analyti-
cal formulations of the overall delay and the traffic emission of
the intersection are further developed and are expressed as the func-
tions of those traffic variables, as suggested by Pandian et al.
(2009). The model can capture the spatial-temporal trajectories of
vehicles and show the spatial-temporal distribution of the traffic
emission near an intersection and provide the optimal joint decision
of the signal timing and/or speed design in the sense of the overall
delay and traffic emission. It is helpful for the real-time speed ad-
visory for eco-driving to balance traffic emission and delay at the
intersection.
Overall Delay and Traffic Emission at Intersection
The vehicle delay and emission are regarded as two of the impor-
tant factors for evaluating the performance of the signalized inter-
section. The issue of the signal control becomes more complicated
when the traffic emission at an intersection is incorporated to evalu-
ate the system performance, because the queuing delay, together
with the vehicle speed (cruise speed, acceleration, and decelera-
tion), have a significant effect on the emission at the intersection.
Therefore, the speed limit in the intersection is a key role, because
the speed limit affects both the queuing delay and the traffic emis-
sion. Furthermore, unlike the model proposed by Chang and Lin
(2000), the cumulative number of the vehicles arriving at and de-
parting from the intersection over time is not linear with the pres-
ence of the acceleration and deceleration. To incorporate the effects
of the acceleration and deceleration in a theoretical model frame-
work, an undersaturated isolated intersection including only red
and green phases is considered. The continuum traffic flow model
is considered and vehicles are assumed to initially arrive at the in-
tersection with identical speed and density. The horizontal queuing
process is assumed and the physical length of vehicles is ignored
for simplicity. The acceleration (deceleration) rate of vehicles is
© ASCE 04017063-2
J. Transp. Eng., Part A: Systems, 2017, 143(12): 04017063
assumed to be identical and fixed. During the signal control, each
vehicle travels to the intersection at the permitted speed (speed
limit), decelerates to stop or a certain speed, then accelerates to
and keeps the permitted speed to leave the intersection.
Overall Delay at Intersection with Acceleration and
Deceleration
This subsection focuses on the overall delay at an isolated intersec-
tion with acceleration and deceleration considerations. The overall
delay is defined as the difference between the actual time taken to
traverse a road segment, which includes an intersection, and the
time to traverse the same road segment at the desired cruising speed
(Olszewski 1993; Cheng et al. 2010). Thus, the overall delay in-
cludes the stopped delay as well as the time lost because of the
slower movement when a vehicle decelerates then accelerates after
a stop. Without consideration of the acceleration and deceleration,
the cumulative arrival and departure of the vehicles can be viewed
as the linear functions over time (Chang and Lin 2000). The queu-
ing delay is expressed as the area of some simple polygons and
calculated by the queuing models. However, with the acceleration
and deceleration, the spatial-temporal diagram of the traffic flow
trajectories is distorted to a curve (Cheng et al. 2010; Dion et al.
2004; Hao et al. 2015; Izadpanah et al. 2009; Mousa 2002; Quiroga
and Bullock 1999). During the deceleration process, the speed
gradually decreases to zero or a certain level, whereas in the case
without deceleration process, the speed suddenly becomes zero.
The vertex between the arriving and stopping flows in the diagram
without deceleration process is substituted with the smooth arc in
the diagram with deceleration process. It is clear to see that the arc
gets longer when the deceleration is smaller, and vice versa. It is
similar to the case with the acceleration process. To be convenient
for the current theoretical analysis, the first vehicle is assumed to
exactly stop the deceleration process at the beginning of the red
time and starts the acceleration at the beginning of the green time.
However, it is possible that the vehicle still decelerates during the
red time and accelerates before the beginning of the green time
(Mousa 2002; Dion et al. 2004). According to the model of Cheng
et al. (2010), the trajectory of a vehicle can be divided into several
regimes, which are either uniform motion (limited speed) or uni-
formly accelerated motion (constant acceleration/deceleration) in a
general case. Therefore, the acceleration/deceleration process is
introduced to smooth the vehicle trajectories and evaluate the
acceleration-deceleration delay.
The method to capture the queueing process incorporating the
effects of the acceleration/deceleration follows the natural idea. The
shockwave model in the undersaturated situation is first adopted to
capture the queuing process of the stopping point and the starting
point corresponding to the deceleration and acceleration process,
respectively. The stopping point and starting poin” construct the
triangle area of the vehicle delay. Based on the triangle, the trajec-
tories of the acceleration/deceleration process are determined.
Then, the point starting to acceleration or the point ending to de-
celeration becomes the lines parallel to the one with stopping points
and the one with starting points, respectively. The two lines inter-
sect below the overall delay triangle. This domain depicts the
trajectories of vehicles without completely stopping. It must be
pointed out that this method only adopts the shockwave model to
determine the triangle area or the queueing of stopping point and
the starting poin,” called critical point by Cheng et al. (2010).
Furthermore, the vehicle length and mixture of vehicle types do
have significant effect on the queueing process. The current paper
assumes the point queueing to derive the analytical expression of
the vehicle trajectories at the intersection.
J. Transp. Eng., Part A: Syst.
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Fig. 1. Spatial-temporal diagram for typical signal cycle

Fig. 1 shows the effects of the acceleration and deceleration on k2

the spatial-temporal diagram of the traffic flow trajectories at an v2SW ¼ − v ð4Þ
km − k2
intersection. Triangle ABC depicts the stop delay in which the ve-
hicles completely stop and are idling. Parallelograms AA 0 EC and Similarly, D is the point at which the deceleration and acceler-
BB 0 FC are the acceleration-deceleration delay, in which the ve- ation exactly finished for all vehicles at the intersection. Because
hicles decrease the speeds until stopping or increase the speeds to A 0 D and B 0 D are parallel to AC and BC, respectively, as shown in
the speed limit gradually. The acceleration-deceleration delay is the Fig. 1, the t-coordinate and x-coordinate of D can be calculated,
travel time loss because of the acceleration and deceleration pro- respectively, are
cess in comparison with the case traveling at the maximal speed.
v1 v1
Triangle EFD is also the acceleration-deceleration delay, where the r þ 2avþ þ vSW v
2 2a
− r
v
2aþ þ vSW v
2 2a
−
vehicle first decreases its speed and then increases to the maximal tD ¼ SW
v1SW
¼ v1SW
þ SW
v1SW
ð5Þ
speed before completely stopping. The overall delay is the area of 1− v2SW
1− v2SW
1− v2SW
triangle A 0 B 0 D, shown in Fig. 1. Under the assumption of under-
saturated condition, the effective green time must guarantee the and
traffic flow turns to the initial state. The effective green time ex-
 
 1
ceeds the length of BG and the last vehicle passing through the v v 1 1 vSW
xD ¼ tD þ v1SW ¼ r þ þ ð6Þ
intersection, shown in Fig. 1. Let k1 , k2 , and km denote the vehicle 2a− 2 a− aþ 1 − v1SW
2 vSW
densities of arriving flow, departure flow, and stopping flow in the
queue, respectively. Suppose the speed limit is the maximal speed
with tD and xD , the area of triangle A 0 B 0 D or the overall delay, D,
permitted by the agency and denoted by v. The acceleration and
can be expressed as
deceleration rate are fixed and denoted by a− and aþ . Denote r
and g as the red and green time, respectively. 
 v1 
2
1 v 1 1 − SW v 1 1
To be convenient for the analytical tractability, let A be the D¼ rþ þ jxD j ¼ v
r þ þ v
origin, ð0; 0Þ in ðx; tÞ-space. The coordinates of points A 0 0 , B, B 0 0 , 2 2 a− aþ v1
1 − SW2
2 a− aþ
vSW
C, and D are determined as follow. According to the shockwave
model, it is known that C is the point at which the queue is ex- ð7Þ
actly dispersed and thus, its t-coordinate and x-coordinate, respec-
The overall delay at an isolated intersection, given by Eq. (7),
tively, are
is expressed as the function of the speed limit, acceleration rate,
deceleration rate and the red time. According to the assumption that
rv1SW r the effective green time must exceed the length of BG, with simple
tC ¼ r þ ¼ ð1Þ
v2SW− v1SW 1 − v1SW calibration, the effective green and red times satisfy the following
v2 SW
relationship for each signal cycle at the intersection


and −xD
g ≥ tBG ¼ tD þ
v
rv1SW 1   
1 v v1SW v1SW
xC ¼ tC v1SW ¼ v1
ð2Þ v
1 − SW
SW
2
vSW
− v
v
2a− þ 1 − v
v
2aþ
1 − vSW
2 ¼ v1
v
r þ v1
ð8Þ
SW
1 − vSW2 1 − vSW
2
SW SW

where v1SWand v2SW

= speeds of the front and back shockwave and where the right-hand side of inequality Eq. (8) is an affine function
can be calculated, respectively, by on r and v.

k1
v1SW ¼ − v ð3Þ Evaluation of the Traffic Emission
km − k1
The evaluation of the traffic emission at an intersection is a chal-
and lenging issue because different emission estimations are associated

© ASCE 04017063-3 J. Transp. Eng., Part A: Syst.

J. Transp. Eng., Part A: Systems, 2017, 143(12): 04017063

 with different events at the intersection. Besides the cruise speed,
the emission rate is significantly affected by the acceleration and
deceleration process. Furthermore, the idling event not only di-
rectly contributes the emission, but also increases the queuing delay
(Nie and Li 2013). The methodology of traffic emission evaluation
is discussed in this subsection.
To explicitly capture the effects of the various events (moving
at a cruise speed, decelerating and/or accelerating, and waiting at
queue) at an intersection on the traffic emission, the following traf-
fic emission function is considered
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where v = maximal speed or speed limit permitted by the agency;
and uðx; tÞ = instantaneous speed, which is the function of time and
space. It must be pointed out that, in the current paper, the form of
the function F½uðx; tÞ; a only depends on the absolute value of
the acceleration or deceleration a. The estimation of the traffic
emission, given by Eq. (10), at the intersection is more reasonable
because the emission rate varies among the whole spatial-temporal
domain. The distribution of the traffic emission near the intersec-
tion can be explicitly captured provided that the instantaneous
speed and acceleration/deceleration are measured. In addition,
Eq. (8) is also satisfied to guarantee that the signal cycle can include

e ¼ Fðu; aÞ; u ≥ 0; a≥0 ð9Þ all events of vehicles at the intersection.

It is the key to select the emission model for the model result in
terms of determining the optimal speed limit and signal timing, as
where e = spatial-temporal traffic emission rate measured by gram well as the solution method. However, several different emission
per second per meter; and u and a = instantaneous speed and ac- models have been developed in the literature from different data
celeration or deceleration of an individual vehicle, respectively. The collection in various contexts (Andre and Hammarström 2000;
emission rate at the idling event for a vehicle is e0 ¼ Fð0; 0Þ > 0. Nie and Li 2013). It is must be pointed out that the previous pro-
Note that the emission rate in many previous studies is always es- posed emission models always measure the emission mess for a
timated for a given roadway. In this case, the relationship between given road segment with a unit of grams per meter. In this case,
the traffic emission and cruise speed is complicated (Jensen 1995). emission rate Fðu; aÞ captures the temporal and spatial emission
Andre and Hammarstrom (2000) empirically found that the emis- mess along the road segment with a unit of grams per meter per
sion rate is nonmonotone with respective to the cruise speed, and second. The direct revision of the previous models is to divide the
further classified that the emission rate is strictly decreasing then traversing time for the vehicle per meter or multiply the instanta-
increasing in the cruise speed. The minimum is obtained at a speed neous speed because the speed can be viewed as the reciprocal of
approximately 60–80 km=h, which is the speed limit for the urban the time with given one meter. The calculation in this numerical
area in many countries. The emission rate function proposed by example will be discussed by adopting the emission model pro-
Nie and Li (2013) is a polynomial function of the cruise speed and posed by Nie and Li (2013).
a linear function of the acceleration. In the current paper, the emis- Recalling again the time-space diagram of the signalized inter-
sion rate is dependent on the instantaneous speed and acceleration/ section, shown in Fig. 1, in domain ABC, the vehicles stop at queue
deceleration, and thus is a function defined on the spatial-temporal with zero speed, and thus the total emission is 12 ð−xC ÞrFð0; 0Þ.
domain. The spatial-temporal emission rate can be obtained by di-
In domains A 0 0 ACC 0 and BB 0 0 C 0 0 C, the trajectories of decelera-
viding the emission rate estimated with a given roadway by the time
tion and acceleration for each vehicle are identical. Therefore,
traversing the roadway at the instantaneous speed.
the emissionpffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
in the two domains can be calculated as
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
In addition, it is supported by many empirical studies that the
Fðu;a Þ 1þu2 Fðu;a Þ 1þu2
acceleration process has a significant effect on the emissions, jACj∫ v0 −
a− du and jBCj∫ v0 þ
aþ du, respectively.
whereas the deceleration process would have no effect on the The length p
offfiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
lines AC and BC can p beffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
calculated, correspondingly,
emissions (Rakha and Ding 2003; Sun et al. 2015). Bokare (2013) 1þðv1SW Þ2 xC 1þðv2SW Þ2 xC
empirically studied the relationship between the emission and de- as jACj ¼ v1SW
and jBCj ¼ v2SW
. In domains C 0 CD
celeration and found that the deceleration has no significant effect 00
and C CD, the trajectories of deceleration and acceleration are part
on the emission because the engine is detached from the vehicle and of curves A 0 0 A and BB 0 0 , respectively, because the vehicles do not
does not participate in the deceleration process. However, several completely stop.
studies have reported that significant acceleration or decelera- It is clear to see that lines AC and BC can be expressed as
tion can increase the instantaneous emission by two or three times x ¼ v1SW t, t ∈ ½0; tC , and x ¼ v2SW ðt − rÞ, t ∈ ½r; tC , respectively.
in comparison with the steady speeds (Hassel and Weber 1993; Obviously, with given deceleration
  and acceleration,
h lines iA 0 0 C 0
Sturm and Sudy 1996). In this paper, the emission rate is not 2
and B 0 0 C 0 0 , are x ¼ v1SW t þ av− − 2av − , t ∈ − av− ; tC − av− , and
distinguished from the acceleration process to the deceleration   h i
process. 2
x ¼ v2SW t − r − avþ þ 2av þ , t ∈ r þ avþ ; tC þ avþ , which can be
During the idling event, the emission rate is constant without
consideration of the deceleration and acceleration. Thus the emis- obtained by shifting lines AC and BC, respectively. To determine
sion is proportional to the stop delay. However, with the effect of the functions of curves C 0 D and C 0 0 D, note that each vehicle ex-
the deceleration and acceleration, the speed and the emission rate actly changes from the deceleration process to acceleration process
varies over time and space. Therefore, the estimation of the emis- at one point on line CD. The instantaneous speed for the vehicle
sion can be expressed as the integral over the spatial-temporal passing through C and D is 0 and v, respectively. It is assumed that
domain. Corresponding to the overall delay, the increment between the speed for the vehicles passing through the points on line CD is
the total traffic emission over the spatial-temporal domain A 0 0 B 0 0 D, uniformly increasing from 0 to v. Given any point ðx 0 ; t 0 Þ on line
0
E1 , and the emission when the vehicles traversing the intersection CD with an instantaneous speed u ¼ ttD−t −tC v, the coordinates of the
C

at the speed limit v, E2 , can be calculated as 0

point on C D for avehicle of beginning  to decelerate and passing
2 2

ZZ through ðx 0 ; t 0 Þ is x 0 − v2a−u− ; t 0 − v−u

a− , which are the parametric

E ¼ E1 − E2 ¼ Fðuðx; tÞ; aÞdxdt equations of ðx 0 ; t 0 Þ. The coordinates of the point on C 0 0 D for the
SΔA 0 0 B 0 0 D vehicle
 of ending to accelerate and passing through ðx 0 ; t 0 Þ are
ZZ 2 2

− Fðv; 0Þdxdt ð10Þ x 0 þ v2a−uþ ; t 0 þ v−u 0 0

aþ . Eliminating ðx ; t Þ from the parametric co-
SΔA 0 0 B 0 0 D ordinates, clearly, both C 0 D and C 0 0 D are parabolic curves, namely

© ASCE 04017063-4 J. Transp. Eng., Part A: Syst.

J. Transp. Eng., Part A: Systems, 2017, 143(12): 04017063



v2 t − tC þ av− 2 t − tC þ av− v1
x¼ þ ðx D − x C Þ 1 − SW 2 rFðv; 0Þ
2a− tD − tC þ av− tD − tC þ av− E2 ¼ v
1 r vFðv; 0Þ þ
  2 1 − SW
v
2
v1
1 − SW
2
v2 v vSW vSW
þ xC − ; t ∈ tC − ; tD pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi! Z
2a− a− 1 þ ðv1SW Þ2 1 þ ðv2SW Þ2 v pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
× þ 1 þ u2 du
a− aþ 0
for curve C 0 D and
r ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
  

 1 2 1 v1SW 1 2
v2 t − tC − avþ 2 t − tC − avþ v
Fðv; 0Þ 1
þ ðv Þ 2þ 1
þ 2
2
x¼− þ ðx − x Þ a− aþ SW aþ vSW a−
2aþ tD − tC − avþ D C
tD − tC − avþ þ v1SW
  1 − v2
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v2 v

Z ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 
SW
þ xC þ ; t ∈ tD ; tC þ 1 1 v p
2aþ aþ × þ u 1 þ u2 du ð12Þ
a− aþ 0
00
for curve C D.
With those boundary curves, the emission in domain C 0 C 0 0 D Note that according to the definitions of speed of the shock-
can be analytically determined. Note that the instantaneous speed waves, v1SW and v2SW , given by Eqs. (3) and (4), respectively, the
is linearly increasing along any one parallel line of CD from a ratios v1SW =v and v2SW =v1SW are constant and related to the densities
certain level to v. Thus, the emission in domains C 0 CD and of the traffic flow. And thus, the total traffic emission E1 and E2 are
C 0 0 CD can be calculated via the curvilinear integral on the par- completely determined by the speed limit, acceleration rate, decel-
allel lines of CD and summarization along the curve C 0 C 0 0 . eration rate, and red time.
With h direct calibration, the pemission in i domain C 0 C 0 0 D is
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
−Þ þÞ
jCDj ∫ v0 ∫ u0 Fðw;a a− þ Fðw;a aþ 1 þ u2 dwdu , where jCDj ¼
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ðxD − xC Þ2 þ ðtD − tC Þ2 . Bi-Objective Problem and Solution Properties
In summary, with the coordinates of C and D, given by Eqs. (1),
In this section, a bi-objective programming is proposed to mini-
(2), (5), and (6), respectively, the emission over the whole spatial-
mize the overall delay and emission increment, simultaneously,
temporal domain A 0 0 B 0 0 D, E1 , can be expressed as
by selection of the speed limit and signal timing. Namely, the
1 government sets the speed limit and signal timing, and the drivers
E1 ¼ ð−xC ÞrFð0; 0Þ select their deceleration and acceleration. It is assumed that all driv-
2
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi Z pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ers follow the same diving style and choose the same deceleration
1 þ ðv1SW Þ2 xC v Fðu; a− Þ 1 þ u2
þ du and acceleration. Once the deceleration and acceleration are given,
v1SW 0 a− the complete vehicle trajectories can be theoretically determined by
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi Z pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1 þ ðv2SW Þ2 xC v Fðu; aþ Þ 1 þ u2 assuming that the initial speed is exactly equal to the speed limit, as
þ du discussed in the previous section, and the overall delay and emis-
v2SW 0 aþ
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi sion increment. The Pareto optimal solutions of the speed limit and
þ ðxD − xC Þ2 þ ðtD − tC Þ2 signal timing can also be determined by numerical method. How-
Z Z
  ever, it must be pointed out that the Pareto optimal solutions depend
v u Fðw; a Þ
− Fðw; aþ Þ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi2 on the deceleration and acceleration adopted by the drivers, which
× þ 1 þ u dwdu
0 0 a− aþ are constant and exogenously given in the current paper. The
v1 bi-objective programming problem can be modelled as follows:
1 − SW
¼ v
r2 vFð0; 0Þ  
2 1 − v1SW Dðv; g; rÞ
2 vSW min ð13Þ
v− ≤v≤vþ ;g≥0;r≥r− Eðv; g; rÞ
Z pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
r v 1 þ ðv1SW Þ2 Fðu; a− Þ
þ v1 subject to the undersaturated condition of Eq. (8), where v− =
1 − vSW
2
0 a−
minimal speed to guarantee the normal flow rate of the intersection;
!
SW
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1 þ ðv2SW Þ2 Fðu; aþ Þ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi2 vþ = maximal speed to guarantee the safety at the intersection; and
þ 1 þ u du r− = minimal red time to allow the pedestrians safely crossing the
aþ intersection.
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
    The solution of Eq. (13), ðv ; g ; r Þ, is called the Pareto-
1 1 2 1 v1 1 2
v
2 a− þ aþ ðvSW Þ2 þ a1þ þ vSW 2 a efficient solution if there does not exist another feasible solution
SW −
þ v1SW
ðv; g; rÞ such that Dðv; g; rÞ ≤ Dðv ; g ; r Þ and Eðv; g; rÞ ≤
1 − v2 Eðv ; g ; r Þ with at least one strict inequality. Two methods can
Z Z
 
SW

Fðw; aþ Þ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi2
v u Fðw; a Þ
−
× þ
0 0 a− aþ
In Eq. (11), the first term is the emission in the queue, the second
and third terms are the emission during the deceleration and accel-
eration process with and without complete stop, respectively. In
particular, when the vehicles traverse the domain at the maximal
cruise speed v during the green time, the total emission E2 is the
product of the area of A 0 0 B 0 0 D and the emission rate Fðv; 0Þ or
calculated by Eq. (11) by setting Fð·; ·Þ at Fðv; 0Þ, i.e.
be adopted to obtain the Pareto solution set for the Eq. (13) as also
1 þ u dwdu ð11Þ used by Guo and Yang (2009) and Tan et al. (2010). The simplest
method is weighted-sum method as follows:
min λ1 Dðv; g; rÞ þ λ2 Eðv; g; rÞ
v− ≤v≤vþ ;g≥0;r≥r−
The different Pareto optimal solution can be obtained by set-
ting different non-negative weight parameters λ1 and λ2 . In fact, the
weighted objective is commonly used to investigate the trade-off of
the travel delay and emission (Ge et al. 2014).

© ASCE 04017063-5 J. Transp. Eng., Part A: Syst.

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 However, the method cannot find each Pareto solution if the
problem is nonconvex (Miettinen 2012). It is also difficult to set
the weight between the time delay and vehicle emission because
there are different measurements for the time delay and emission.
For the nonconvex bi-objective programming, the ε− constraint
method can be adopted to find all Pareto solutions (Miettinen
2012). With this method, the feasible over delay D or emission in-
crement E must first be determined in the feasible domain, and then
the Pareto optimal solutions are determined by considering the con-
straint mathematical programming. Namely, the feasible domain of
the time delay and vehicle emission in the feasible domain can be
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first determined, separately
½Dmin ; Dmax  ¼ fDðv; g; rÞ∶v− ≤ v ≤ vþ ; g ≥ 0; r ≥ r− g
and
½Emin ; Emax  ¼ fEðv; g; rÞ∶v− ≤ v ≤ vþ ; g ≥ 0; r ≥ r− g
Then, the constraint of the time delay or vehicle emission is
set as
Dðv; g; rÞ ≤ D̄; D̄ ∈ ½Dmin ; Dmax 
or
Eðv; g; rÞ ≤ Ē; Ē ∈ ½Emin ; Emax 
Finally, the Pareto optimal speed limit v, green and red times, g
and r, can be jointly determined by considering the following
constraint programming
min Eðv; g; rÞ
v− ≤v≤vþ ;g≥0;r≥r−
subject to
Dðv; g; rÞ ≤ D̄
or the following constraint programming
min Dðv; g; rÞ
v− ≤v≤vþ ;g≥0;r≥r−
subject to
Eðv; g; rÞ ≤ Ē
When the value D̄ varies in ½Dmin ; Dmax  or Ē in ½D̄min ; D̄max ,
the solutions of those programming problems will figure out the
Pareto solution set of original Eq. (13). If the time delay and vehicle
emission are positive correlative to each other, the constraint pro-
gramming problems become unconstraint programming problems,
and the optimal speed limit, green, and red times can minimize the
delay and emission simultaneously. Otherwise, the trade-off Pareto
optimal solution such that the constraint condition is binding and
the objective is minimized under the constraint.
Note that the overall delay and the emission increment are free
from the effect of the selection of the green time provided that the
condition in Eq. (8) holds. Therefore, it is convenient to assume that
Therefore, in theory, a lower speed limit, a longer green time, the
higher acceleration and deceleration can reduce the overall delay at
the intersection. Those results are consistent to those obtained by
Olszewski (1993) and Mousa (2002) in their empirical studies.
Note that when the emission rate function, given by Eq. (11), is
strictly increasing in the speed limit and concavely increasing in the
acceleration, then the total emission E1 is strictly increasing in both
r and v, and decreasing in the deceleration and acceleration. The
latter conclusion follows that Fðu;aÞ−Fðv;0Þ
a is strictly decreasing in a
for all u. The effect of the speed limit, green time, and acceleration
on the total emission E1 is identical to that of them on the overall
delay. Therefore, a lower speed limit, a longer green time, and the
higher acceleration and deceleration rate can reduce the total emis-
sion at the intersection. The acceleration and deceleration increase
the instantaneous emission rate, which is also demonstrated by
many empirical studies (Guensler 1993; Andre and Pronello 1997;
Rakha et al. 2000). Even the acceleration and deceleration simul-
taneously decrease the overall delay of the vehicles D, and reduces
the total emission E1 at the intersection. However, it is too com-
plicated to investigate the effects of the speed limit, green time and
acceleration/deceleration on the emission increment E because
those factors have the mixed effects on both E1 and E2 . Therefore,
their effects will be examined in the next section via the numerical
example.
Numerical Study
In this section, a numerical example is adopted to depict the es-
sential idea of the paper. Without loss of generality, suppose the
density of arrival flow k1 ¼ 13 km and the density of the departure
flow k2 ¼ 12 km, where km is the jam density at the queue. With sim-
ple calibration, it is known that both the speeds of the shockwave
after and before the queue, given by Eqs. (3) and (4), are v1SW ¼
− 12 v and v2SW ¼ −v, respectively. Without necessarily representing
a realistic setting, the deceleration and acceleration are assumed
to a− ¼ 2 m=s2 and aþ ¼ 3 m=s2 . According to Eqs. (7) and
(8), the overall delay in the isolated intersection is D ¼
v 12 r þ 24
5
v 2 with the undersaturated condition g ≥ r þ 15 24 v.
To examine the spatial-temporal distribution of the emission
rate, the instantaneous speed of each vehicle passing through the
domain is first be derived with any given point. It must be pointed
out that the explicit formulation of the instantaneous speed is not
necessarily required to calculate the emission increment according
to Eqs. (11) and (12). Note that the spatial-temporal trajectory with
any given point on the boundary is completely determined. Given
the deceleration and acceleration, the spatial-temporal instantane-
ous speed of the vehicles can be explicitly determined. For the
vehicles with complete stop, the instantaneous speed is
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
uðx; tÞ ¼ v1SW þ ðv1SW Þ2 þ 2a− v1SW t − 2a− x ð14Þ
when ðx; tÞ satisfies
Eq. (8) is binding and the green time can be completely determined 
 
v v2 a ðt − tC Þ2
by the red time and speed limit with given acceleration and decel- max v1SW t þ − ; xC − −
eration rates. That is to say, the bi-objective function can be reduced a− 2a− 2
 2

to minimize both overall delay and emission increment by selection a t
≤ x ≤ min v1SW t; − − ;
of the red time and speed limit. 2
It is clear to see that the overall delay D, given by Eq. (7), is qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
convex and increasing with respect to v and r, because both the uðx; tÞ ¼ v2SW þ ðv2SW Þ2 þ 2aþ v2SW ðr − tÞ þ 2aþ x ð15Þ
ratios v1SW =v and v2SW =v1SW are constant. Furthermore, the overall
delay D is also convex and decreasing with respect to a− and aþ . when ðx; tÞ satisfies

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J. Transp. Eng., Part A: Systems, 2017, 143(12): 04017063

  
a ðt − tC Þ2 2.81  10−4 u3 − 0.0130u2 þ 0.334u þ 0.371ua þ 0.176
max v2SW ðt − rÞ; xC þ þ Fðu; aÞ ¼
2 1609.344

 
v v2 aþ ðt − rÞ2 ð20Þ
≤ x ≤ min v2SW t − r − þ ;
aþ 2aþ 2
It must be pointed out that the emission rate proposed by Nie
and Li (2013) is measured by the mess of the emission on a given
and
road segment and has a unit grams per meter. However, to obtain
the spatial-temporal emission rate, the emission rate per meter of
uðx; tÞ ¼ 0 ð16Þ
Nie and Li (2013) is divided by the cruise time at the given road
segment, or multiply it by the instantaneous speed, which gives
when –ðx; tÞ satisfies
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rise to the spatial-temporal emission rate in Eq. (20). Notably, the

spatial-temporal emission rate in Eq. (20) is strictly increasing in
v1SW t ≤ x ≤ minf0; v2SW ðt − rÞg instantaneous speed u and acceleration/deceleration a.
Fig. 2 shows the mesh and contour of the instantaneous speed in
For the vehicles without complete stop, the instantaneous speed the spatial-temporal diagram with a speed limit v ¼ 40 km=h and a
is determined by the following equation: red time r ¼ 20 s. Observed from the mesh and contour in Fig. 2,
it is known that the instantaneous speed is varying along the time


v2 t − tC þ au− 2 t − tC þ au− u2 and space in the signal control procedure. The vehicles firstly cruise
x¼ þ ðx D − x C Þ þ x C − at speed v, then decrease to speed zero or a certain level, and finally
2a− tD − tC þ av− tD − tC þ av− 2a−
accelerate to speed v. Eqs. (14)–(18) explicitly captures the instan-
ð17Þ taneous speed of vehicles at the intersection with the effects of the
deceleration and acceleration.
when ðx; tÞ satisfies With the instantaneous speed in Eqs. (14)–(18), the correspond-

 ing emission rate can be readily determined, given by Eq. (20).
v2 t − tC þ av− 2 t − tC þ av− v2 Fig. 3 shows the contour of the emission rate in the spatial-temporal
þ ðx − x Þ þ x −
2a− tD − tC þ av− D C
tD − tC þ av− C
2a− diagram with a speed limit v ¼ 40 km=h and a red time r ¼ 20 s.
  From Fig. 3, clearly, that the traffic emission rate significantly
x − xC a ðt − tC Þ2
≤ x ≤ min xC þ D ðt − tC Þ; xC − − changes during the signal control procedure. The emission rate
tD − tC 2 is lower at the idling process and higher at the beginning of the
acceleration and the ending of the deceleration process than the
or the following equation: cruise process at speed v. Because the acceleration is larger than
the deceleration, the emission rate achieves the highest level at the


v2 t − tC − auþ 2 t − tC − auþ instantaneous time of ending the acceleration process. The highest
x¼− þ ðx D − x C Þ emission rate is nearly ten times more than that in the case at the
2aþ tD − tC − avþ tD − tC − avþ
cruise process at speed v. Thus, the acceleration and deceleration
u2 have significant effect on the emission rate.
þ xC þ ð18Þ
2aþ Fig. 4 depicts the effect of the deceleration and acceleration on
the instantaneous traffic emission rate and overall delay with the
and ðx; tÞ satisfies condition deceleration/acceleration a− ¼ aþ ¼ 1, 2, 3, and 4 m=s2 and speed
limit v ¼ 40 km=h. It is clear to see that the higher values are the


xD − xC v2 t − tC − avþ 2 acceleration and deceleration rate, and the lower value is the overall
max xC þ ðt − tC Þ; delay, because the higher acceleration and deceleration rate reduces
tD − t C 2aþ tD − tC − avþ
the time for vehicles of decelerating and accelerating. Furthermore,

t − tC − avþ v2 the instantaneous traffic emission rate increases when the acceler-
þ ðxD − xC Þ þ xC þ ation and deceleration rate increases for any given level of the
tD − tC − avþ 2aþ
instantaneous speed. However, it is hard to determine the monot-
aþ ðt − tC Þ2 onicity of the total emission in the acceleration and deceleration
≤ x ≤ xC þ
2 rate because the higher acceleration and deceleration rate reduces
the time for vehicles of decelerating and accelerating.
With the instantaneous speed of each point in the domain, the The bi-objective programming problem of Eq. (13) is now can
spatial-temporal emission rate can be readily calculated. In the be calculated by setting the red time r ∈ ½0,100 and v ∈ ½0,100.
paper of Nie and Li (2013), the fuel emission rate was built on It must be pointed out that the practice feasible domain of the speed
the comprehensive modal emission model as follows: limit in an urban city would not be too low or too high, e.g., 40 to
60 km=h. In this case, the Pareto optimal solutions and the corre-
Fðu; aÞ ¼ 8.31  10−5 u2 − 0.00385u þ 0.0988 sponding Pareto frontier are readily obtained by limiting the speed
v to the corresponding feasible domain. Note that the Pareto fron-
þ 0.0586u−1 þ 0.11a ð19Þ tier with the more practical feasible domain of the speed limit must
be one partition of the whole Pareto frontier. Fig. 5 depicts the
The emission rate function proposed by Nie and Li (2013) is contour of overall delay D and total traffic emission E1 at the in-
now adopted, given by Eq. (19), to obtain the spatial-temporal tersection with various combinations of the speed limit and red
emission rate, still denoted by F. Dividing the left-hand-side term time, whereas Fig. 6 shows the contour of overall delay D and the
of Eq. (19) by the time traversing one mile at the instantaneous emission increment E at the intersection with same combinations of
speed u, and measured in grams per meter per second, it gives the speed limit and red time. In the current numerical example, no-
rise to tably, both overall delay and total traffic emission at the intersection

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J. Transp. Eng., Part A: Systems, 2017, 143(12): 04017063

Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Nanyang Technological University- Library on 10/12/17. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
Fig. 2. Mesh and contour of the instantaneous speed (km=h)
50
0 12
Distance from the intersection (meter)
-50
-100
-150
-200
-250
-300
-10
Fig. 3. Spatial-temporal diagram of traffic emission [gram=ðmeter × secondÞ]
are increasing with respect to the speed limit v and red time r. Thus,
given the feasible domain v− ≤ v ≤ vþ and r ≥ r− , it is natural for
the planner to select the lowest speed limit v− and red time r− to
achieve the optimal performance or lowest levels of both overall
delay and total emission at a signalized intersection. However, for
any given red time, the emission increment E first increases by a
little bit and then decreases significantly in the speed limit v,
whereas the overall delay D is strictly increasing in v. Thus, the
objective functions in programming Eq. (13) conflict with each
other. Furthermore, the overall delay D is strictly increasing in
the red time r with given v, whereas the emission increment E
is strictly decreasing in the red time r with given v. For the bi-
objective programming Eq. (13) with constraints v− ≤ v ≤ vþ
and r ≥ r− , it is known that, at any Pareto-efficient solution, the red
time r and the speed limit v are determined by the trade-off of D
and E.
© ASCE
14
10
8
6
4
2
0
0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (second)
Fig. 7 shows the overall delay and emission increment with dif-
ferent levels of the speed limit v and assuming the minimal red time
r− ¼ 20 s for the safety of the pedestrians. It is clear to see that the
overall delay is strictly increasing in v, whereas the emission incre-
ment increases by a little bit and then decreases. There is a trade-off
when design the speed limit for the isolated intersection. Fig. 8
depicts the Pareto optimal frontier of bi-objective programming
Eq. (13) with red time r ¼ 20 s. In this case, the Pareto optimal
frontier can be readily obtained by selecting the speed limit v.
In this numerical example, the Pareto frontier when given the
red time is concave and changes from ð0; 0Þ to approximately
ð12; 380 veh × sec; −2; 565 gÞ in the ðD; EÞ-domain with the
speed limit varies from 0 to 100 km=h. For the more practical fea-
sible domain of the speed limit, such as 40–60 km=h, the objective
values of the delay and emission can be limited in the feasible do-
main 40–60 km=h, and the corresponding Pareto frontier is shown
04017063-8 J. Transp. Eng., Part A: Syst.
J. Transp. Eng., Part A: Systems, 2017, 143(12): 04017063
 Distance from the intersection (meter)

Distance from the intersection (meter)

100 6 100 10

0 5
0 8
4
-100 -100 6
3
-200 -200 4
2
-300 -300 2
1

-400 -400 0
-10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
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(a) Time (second) (a-=a+=1m/s 2) (b) Time (second) (a-=a+=2m/s 2)

Distance from the intersection (meter)

100
Distance from the intersection (meter)

100 14

12 15
0 0
10
-100 8 -100
10

-200 6 -200
4 5
-300 -300
2

-400 0 -400
-10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
(c) Time (second) (a-=a+=3m/s 2) (d) Time (second) (a-=a+=4m/s ) 2

Fig. 4. Effect of acceleration and deceleration on the traffic emission

100
25
00
00
90

80 15
00
00
70
Red time r (second)

60 80
00
0
2000

50
40
00
0
40

30

10 0
10 0

20 00
50
20
50
10 0

00
00
00
10

0
1
0.1

10
0.0

20 0
1

0 5 20 00
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Speed limit v (km/hr)

Fig. 5. Overall delay versus total emission with various levels of speed and red time

by the solid curve in Fig. 8, which is a partition of the whole Pareto cruise speed, deceleration and acceleration, and the signal timing
frontier. at that intersection. This paper developed a microscopic spatial-
temporal method to explicitly incorporate the effects of the ve-
hicles’ instantaneous speed (cruise speed, deceleration rate, and
Conclusions and Further Studies acceleration rate) and signal timing at an isolated intersection.
Based on this method, the analytical expressions are proposed for
It has been widely recognized that both the overall delay and traffic the overall delay and emission increment with and without traffic
emission at an intersection are significantly affected by the vehicle signal control at the intersection. The former captures the time

© ASCE 04017063-9 J. Transp. Eng., Part A: Syst.

J. Transp. Eng., Part A: Systems, 2017, 143(12): 04017063

 100

-1 0000
0.5

-2 000
90

-5 00
-1 00
-5
-0.1
80

70

Red time r (second)

60

28 80
50
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40 53 8
0

0.1 0
30

20

-2 0
-5
10

-1

00
00
00
-5
-0 . 13 80 53 80
167 32 0 28 80
0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Speed limit v (km/hr)

Fig. 6. Overall delay versus emission increment with various levels of speed and red time

14000 500

Emission difference
12000 0
Overall delay D (vehicle second)

10000 -500

Emission gap (gram)

8000 -1000

6000 -1500

4000 -2000

2000 -2500

0 -3000
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Speed limit v (km/hr)

Fig. 7. Overall delay and emission increment with different speed limits

delay and the latter represents the traffic emission caused by the time, and first increasing by a little bit and then decreasing signifi-
signal. A bi-objective programming model is presented to jointly cantly in the cruise speed. Therefore, the transportation planner
determine the optimal signal timing and speed limit to minimize the should set the highest-level red time and speed limit. The optimal
overall delay and emission increment with and without traffic sig- joint decision of the signal timing and speed limit is one of the
nal control. The nonlinear and nonconvex objectives introduce the Pareto optimal solutions, which results in the tradeoff between the
complexity of the theoretical analysis. overall delay and traffic increment for the intersection.
The properties of the objective functions were numerically in- The current paper only considers one isolated intersection,
vestigated by adopting the emission rate function proposed by Nie which is not suitable for complicated urban network and must be
and Li (2013). As shown in the numerical example, the overall de- extended to cases with multiple phases and multiple movements.
lay is strictly increasing both in the red time and speed limit, Furthermore, the traffic flow in front of the intersection is assumed
namely, the shorter the red time is or the lower the speed limit is, to be uniform and stable. However, in reality, the driving behavior
the smaller the overall delay is. Thus, the transportation planner can of an individual traveler is random with respect to acceleration and
set the lowest-level red time and speed limit in terms of the overall cruise speed, which results in the nonuniform traffic flow. Finally,
delay. However, the emission increment is strictly decreasing in red in the urban network, the cooperation among the intersections is

© ASCE 04017063-10 J. Transp. Eng., Part A: Syst.

J. Transp. Eng., Part A: Systems, 2017, 143(12): 04017063

 500
-500
Emission gap (gram)
-1000
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-1500
-2000
-2500
0 2000
Fig. 8. Pareto frontier in the sense of the overall delay and emission increment
important but is not investigated in the current paper. The new mod-
eling methodology must be developed to study the joint design of
the speed limit and signal time in the network environment.
Acknowledgments
The work described in this paper was supported by the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (71471068), the Major
Program of National Social Science Foundation of China
(13&ZD175), and Huazhong University of Science and Technol-
ogy (5001300001).
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