Date of Award
8-2017
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Civil Engineering
Committee Member
Dr. Wayne Sarasua, Committee Chair
Committee Member
Dr. Mashrur Chowdhury
Committee Member
Dr. Jennifer Ogle
Abstract
The City of Clemson has a population of approximately 14,000 residents and the university has 22,700 enrolled students. However, for seven weekends during the fall, the roadways are pushed beyond capacity during home football games on Clemson University's campus. Typical attendance for these home games is 80,000+ Clemson fans. These home games generate non-recurring congestion and typically require special mitigations measures, such as police officer-control of intersections. With this substantial increase in demand during football game days, the mobility around the Clemson area is severely constrained both before and after games. In an effort to alleviate traffic congestion, researchers at Clemson employed the Hitchcock Algorithm to optimize where ticketholders from particular origins park. By optimizing where ticketholders park and the routes they take into campus, unnecessary link flows can be reduced. Furthermore, demand for games is high enough to cause links to reach capacity, so this research also considers link capacity when optimizing lot and route assignments. Additionally results from a Bluetooth study collected by a third party were used to calibrate the existing probable routes and link flows. The data also showed that where these vehicles park is not typically a function of where they enter the network. The added travel time of these vehicles through the campus network negatively impacts the traffic congestion of the overall system. This research revisits the problem of optimizing football parking analyzed by Malisetty in 2004 but incorporates the use of Bluetooth sensor data and the concept of capacity-restraint. Likely link flows through campus resulting from existing lot assignments are compared to those predicted by the Hitchcock optimization, and recommendations for new parking assignments (both lots and routes into campus) are proposed for ticketholders based upon the region of the Southeast US where they originate.
Recommended Citation
Matney, Laura Lee, "Clemson Football Parking Optimization Using the Hitchcock Algorithm and Validation with Bluetooth Sensors" (2017). All Theses. 2742.
https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/2742