Incident Management Using Variable Message Signs: Implications for Vehicle-Induced Emissions in a Congested Developing City

The objective of this paper is to assess the potential of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) in alleviating traffic congestion in a developing congested city and to analyze implications related to vehicle-induced emissions. The Greater Beirut Area road network is used as the test bed for evaluation of specific strategies for incident management, which is the ITS application considered for this study. A series of simulation scenarios were conducted to evaluate the impact of driver compliance with driver information disseminated by variable messages signs (VMS) on network performance and corresponding emissions. Network performance measures such as travel and stop times are developed, and corresponding vehicle-induced emissions are estimated using CO, NO_x, and TOC emissions as indicators