A ramp meter will be installed on a freeway on-ramp (length of ramp is 1000 ft). The metering will start operating at 7:00 AM. The transportation engineer responsible for the ramp metering installation proposed to allow one vehicle every 8 seconds for the period 7:00 – 7:30 AM, one vehicle every 7.5 seconds for 7:30 – 8:30 AM and one vehicle every 4 seconds after 8:30 AM. The transportation engineer also collected data at the ramp and found that the arrival rate is 500 veh/h (constant) throughout the day.

Assuming a D/D/1 queueing system, draw the queueing diagram and compute:

1. the time when the queue dissipates,

2. the longest queue,

3. the longest delay, and

4. the total vehicle delay.

5. Will the queue be long enough to interfere with the arterial street traffic? Assume that the average length of a vehicle in queue is 25 ft (including gap with front vehicle)