Optimal Variable Speed Limit Control for the Mixed Traffic Flows in a Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Environment

Traffic congestion occurs frequently with the continually increasing traffic demand (including both passenger cars and heavy vehicles), which is detrimental to transportation mobility, efficiency, environment, and safety. Due to the limited budget, government agencies at all the local, state, and federal levels need to work together and seek new ways to meet the increasing demand rather than simply relying on the physical expansion of roadways. As such, active traffic management (ATM) strategies have been proposed and used by transportation researchers and practitioners to optimize the existing roadway networks. Variable speed limit (VSL), which is an indispensable ATM component, has received increasing attention and been recognized as a promising way to relieve traffic congestions. Even though a lot of promising results have been obtained from the studies of the VSL control, several critical issues related to the VSL operation remain to be addressed. For example, although the connected and autonomous vehicles are becoming to gain greater market penetration, the optimal variable speed limit control for the mixed traffic flows in a connected and autonomous vehicle environment has not been studied and therefore there is a strong need in this research area. This project aims to systematically study the optimal variable speed limit control for the mixed traffic flows at the bottlenecks in a connected and autonomous vehicle environment. Several tasks will be conducted, including an extensive literature review on the development and implementation of the VSL control. Several multi-objective nonlinear integer models will be formulated for the VSL control for mixed traffic flows both under normal conditions and in a connected and autonomous vehicle environment. Discrete optimization based solution algorithms will be developed to solve these VSL models. Finally, the developed VSL algorithms will be implemented and evaluated by using a real world freeway corridor as a case study. Sensitivity analyses of the proposed VSL systems will be conducted, and comprehensive numerical results will also be presented.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $90007
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3551747133

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Center for Advanced Multimodal Mobility Solutions and Education

  University of North Carolina, Charlotte
  Charlotte, NC  United States  28223

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  University of North Carolina, Charlotte

  Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
  9201 University City Boulevard
  Charlotte, NC  United States  28223-0001
• Project Managers:

  Fan, Wei

• Performing Organizations:

  Center for Advanced Multimodal Mobility Solutions and Education

  University of North Carolina, Charlotte
  Charlotte, NC  United States  28223
• Principal Investigators:

  Fan, Wei

• Start Date: 20171001
• Expected Completion Date: 20180930
• Actual Completion Date: 20180930

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bottlenecks; Connected vehicles; Integer programming; Intelligent vehicles; Nonlinear programming; Traffic congestion; Traffic control; Variable speed limits
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01652800
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Center for Advanced Multimodal Mobility Solutions and Education
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747133
• Files: UTC, RiP
• Created Date: Dec 1 2017 5:17PM