| An advanced technology for fully-automatic, nonstop toll collections has been developed and is being implemented. This technology can lead to a significant increase in toll plaza capacity and can overcome queuing and delay problems as well as satisfying space requirements. The toll plaza simulation model (TOLLSIM) was developed, the service times of vehicles were thoroughly investigated, and toll plaza level-of-service criteria were established in this research to assist transportation planners in analyzing measures of effectiveness, capacity and levels of service of toll plaza performance, either with or without automatic vehicle identification (AVI) systems.;The model runs on microcomputers with PC SIMSCRIPT II.5 software. The program structure was written in such a way to have data inputs that are user-friendly, outputs give high resolution detail and are easy to interpret, and program modification is quick and simple. The model can analyze toll plazas with no limit in traffic characteristics, physical configurations, and toll collection methods.;The fundamental concepts of the model are: (a) arrival traffic are generated by either shifted negative exponential or lognormal distribution; (b) service times of vehicles follow the Erlang distribution; and (c) a driver selects a toll booth based on the driver's minimum perceived-time-impedance (i.e., sum of the "driver's expected waiting time" at a toll booth and the "configuration effect," in time units, of the toll booth-freeway lane).;The model was validated with a one-hour observed performance of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel toll plaza in New York City. The booth throughputs were found to be within +5 percent of the observed data and the measures of effectiveness were accepted at a level of significance of 0.05. This confirms the ability of TOLLSIM to accurately replicate toll plaza operations. Five applications of TOLLSIM were illustrated, including capacity evaluation, toll booth scheduling, and performance prediction of the AVI systems. The model is a truly useful and efficient tool for planning, design and appraisal of toll plaza performances, and may eliminate the time and costs of actual field observations. |
