Lane-based network for transportation network flow analysis and inventory management

The widely-accepted link-node centerline network model inhibits lane-based traffic analysis and inventory management; specifically the ability to represent availability of lanes, individual lane properties, connectivity among parallel lanes and at turns, and lane movement restrictions. A lane-based network overcomes the limitations by maintaining lanes as independent topological objects, thus supporting data management, decision making and network analysis at the lane level.; The data model for a lane-based network uses a directed graph approach where a set of unidirectional lanes and nodes are used to model traffic flow connectivity. The model manages the continuous lateral connectivity between parallel lanes by specifying the relative lateral position of the lanes on their parent roadways. This approach provides an efficient way to maintain lane topology and eliminates the requirement of turntables. This dissertation presents the model along with guidelines for lane-based inventory management and strategies for discretizing continuous lateral connectivity between parallel lanes to enable the use of existing routing algorithms (e.g. Dijkstra's). Finally, this dissertation presents the migration from a link-node centerline network to a lane-based network and a practical implementation of lane-based evacuation planning example where crossing conflicts at intersections are precluded.