Preliminary Evaluation of Field Testing on Eco-Approach and Departure (EAD) Application for Actuated Signals

Prior studies have shown that tangible environmental benefits can be gained by communicating the driver with the signal phase and timing (SPaT) information of the upcoming traffic signal with fixed time control. However, similar applications to actuated signals pose a significant challenge due to their randomness to some extent caused by vehicle actuation. Based on the framework previously developed by the authors, a preliminary real-world testing has been conducted to evaluate the system performance in terms of energy savings and emissions reduction. Four scenarios that covers most of traffic and signal conditions are evaluated. For each scenario, we vary the entry time and speed to thoroughly investigate the performance of the developed Eco-Approach and Departure (EAD) system. It turns out that the EAD system saves 5%-10% energy for high entry speed, and 7%-26% energy for low entry speed. That results is compatible with the simulation results and validate the previously developed EAD framework.