Control Plan Generator

The Control Plan Generator is a tool that quickly generates a Control Plan for a specific node based on the turn capacity, assigned turn volumes, and some user specified parameters.

Note about licenses: This functionality requires a license for the Pro TDM, Advanced, or Expert Edition of Aimsun Next.

Control Plan Generator Usage

The Control Plan Generator can be used to generate the control plan for a single node or for a selection of nodes. After selecting the node(s) right click on the node and choose the Generate Control Plan from Volumes option. This will open the Control Plan Generator.

The following parameters can be set to execute the Control Plan Generator:

• In the Apply to Group combo a predefined grouping of nodes can be selected for which the control plans will be calculated.
• If results of a static experiment are available, a Static Assignment Experiment can be selected and the assigned volumes from this assignment will be used to generate the control plans.
• If a control plan already exists this Control Plan can be chosen in which the newly generated node control plan is included.
• Minimum Green Time: The minimum time green time of a phase.
• Minimum Cycle Time: The minimum time of a cycle. The generated Node Control Cycle Time will never be less than this value.
• Maximum Cycle Time: The maximum time of a cycle. The generated Node Control Plan Cycle Time will never be greater than this value.
• Yellow Time: The duration of the yellow time of a phase.
• Red Time Percentage: The percentage of the Yellow Time that is considered as Red Time.
• In the Exclude Nodes combo a predefined grouping of nodes can be selected to be excluded from the control plan generating process.
• Actuated Control Plans can be activated to generate activated control plans and create the corresponding detectors.
• Exclude Nodes without conflicting flows is activated by default to prevent generation of control plans for nodes that have no turn conflicts.
• If only one node is selected to generate a control plan, the node volumes can be specified for each turn. If multiple nodes are selected the volumes are taken from the selected assignment experiment.

The control plans are calculated by first grouping the different turns according to their conflicts and fraction volume/capacity. Once the different conflicting groups are determined and ordered, the cycle time according to Webster is calculated:

\(T_c = (1.5*T_l + 5)/(1-Y)\)

In which:

• \(T_c\) = Cycle Time
• \(T_l\) = Total lost time of cycle
• \(Y\) = Sum of fractions for conflicting signal group