A multi-class time-dependent model for the analysis of waiting phenomena at a motorway tollgate

The planning, design and operational management of motorway toll booths are of great interest in traffic engineering, as these facilities directly influence the quality of the service offered to users. This paper focuses on a time-dependent queue model based on the coordinates transformation criterion for operations assessment at a motorway tollgate. This model allows to face the whole spectrum of situations that may characterize a toll booth, some of which often fall outside the boundaries of the probabilistic theory for stationary queues. The paper proposes an M/Γ/1 multi-class queue model for the evaluation of evolutionary profiles of waiting times and queue lengths by closed-form equations. The results obtained for three numerical test cases show a good approximation level, compared with the mean values of queue parameters obtained reiterating a discrete-state simulation model. The proposed time-dependent equations will be useful in technical cases, allowing to operate quickly and compactly even when probabilistic queue theory is not applicable or produce unrealistic results, and the burden of complexity of the simulation approach is not conveniently absorbable. The discussion highlights a significant flexibility of the model proposed in addressing situations with conventional vehicles, i.e., with total human control and proposes some considerations for application in future scenarios with the presence of connected vehicles (CVs).