scholarly journals Improving Traffic State Prediction Model for Variable Speed Limit Control by Introducing Stochastic Supply and Demand

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuwei Bie ◽  
Mudasser Seraj ◽  
Can Zhang ◽  
Tony Z. Qiu

Variable speed limit (VSL) is becoming recognized as an effective way to improve traffic throughput and road safety. In particular, methods based on traffic state prediction exhibit promising potential to prevent future traffic congestion and collisions. However, field observations indicate that the traffic state prediction model results in nonnegligible error that impacts the next step decision making of VSL. Thus, this paper investigates how to eliminate this prediction error within a VSL environment. In this study, the traffic state prediction model is a second-order traffic flow model named METANET, while the VSL control is model predictive control (MPC) based, and the VSL decision is discrete optimized choice. A simplified version of the switching mode stochastic cell transmission model (SCTM) is integrated with the METANET model to eliminate the prediction error. The performance of the proposed method is assessed using field data from a VSL pilot test in Edmonton, Canada, and is compared with the prediction results of the baseline METANET model during the road test. The results show that during the most congested period the proposed SCTM-METANET model significantly improves the prediction accuracy of regular METANET model.

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (24) ◽  
pp. 1750219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shubin Li ◽  
Danni Cao

Mainline freeway traffic flow control is one of the primary methods of traffic management, which can present the best network situation. In this paper, we integrate variable speed limit (VSL) strategy into the cell transmission model (CTM). Then the implementation of the integrated model on freeway traffic network is discussed. A novel optimal model of controlling freeway traffic flow is proposed for minimizing the total travelling time in the network. A solution algorithm is designed by using a simulation method. Considering the main purpose of the speed limit strategy is to control the mainstream flow, we compare the case where the VSL is used with the one without VSL. A simulation is implemented to show that the control strategy is efficient in describing system’s dynamic performance and the dynamic speed limit strategy significantly alleviates congestion.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Christina Ng ◽  
Susilawati Susilawati ◽  
Md Abdus Samad Kamal ◽  
Irene Mei Leng Chew

This paper aims at developing a macroscopic cell-based lane change prediction model in a complex urban environment and integrating it into cell transmission model (CTM) to improve the accuracy of macroscopic traffic state estimation. To achieve these objectives, first, based on the observed traffic data, the binary logistic lane change model is developed to formulate the lane change occurrence. Second, the binary logistic lane change is integrated into CTM by refining CTM formulations on how the vehicles in the cell are moving from one cell to another in a longitudinal manner and how cell occupancy is updated after lane change occurrences. The performance of the proposed model is evaluated by comparing the simulated cell occupancy of the proposed model with cell occupancy of US-101 next generation simulation (NGSIM) data. The results indicated no significant difference between the mean of the cell occupancies of the proposed model and the mean of cell occupancies of actual data with a root-mean-square-error (RMSE) of 0.04. Similar results are found when the proposed model was further tested with I80 highway data. It is suggested that the mean of cell occupancies of I80 highway data was not different from the mean of cell occupancies of the proposed model with 0.074 RMSE (0.3 on average).


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Huixuan Ye ◽  
Lili Tu ◽  
Jie Fang

Variable Speed Limit (VSL) control contributes to potential crash risk reduction by suggesting a suitable dynamic speed limit to achieve more stable and uniform traffic flow. In recent studies, researchers adopted macroscopic traffic flow models and perform prediction-based optimal VSL control. The response of drivers to the advised VSL is one of the most critical parameters in VSL-controlled speed dynamics modeling, which significantly affects the accuracy of traffic state prediction as well as the control reliability and performance. Nevertheless, the variations of driver responses were not explicitly modeled. Thus, in this research, the authors proposed a dynamic driver response model to formulate how the drivers respond to the advised VSL during various traffic conditions. The model was established and calibrated using field data to quantitatively analyze the dynamics of drivers’ desired speed regarding the advised VSL and current traffic state variables. A proactive VSL control algorithm incorporating the established driver response model was designed and implemented in field-data-based simulation study. The design proactive control algorithm modifies VSL in real-time according to the traffic state prediction results, aiming to reduce potential crash risks over the experiment site. By taking into account the real-time driver response variations, the VSL-controlled traffic state dynamics was more accurately predicted. The experimental results illustrated that the proposed control algorithm effectively reduces the crash probabilities in the traffic network.


2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (06) ◽  
pp. 1850077 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shubin Li ◽  
Danni Cao

The variable speed limit (VSL) is a kind of active traffic management method. Most of the strategies are used in the expressway traffic flow control in order to ensure traffic safety. However, the urban expressway system is the main artery, carrying most traffic pressure. It has similar traffic characteristics with the expressways between cities. In this paper, the improved link transmission model (LTM) combined with VSL strategies is proposed, based on the urban expressway network. The model can simulate the movement of the vehicles and the shock wave, and well balance the relationship between the amount of calculation and accuracy. Furthermore, the optimal VSL strategy can be proposed based on the simulation method. It can provide management strategies for managers. Finally, a simple example is given to illustrate the model and method. The selected indexes are the average density, the average speed and the average flow on the traffic network in the simulation. The simulation results show that the proposed model and method are feasible. The VSL strategy can effectively alleviate traffic congestion in some cases, and greatly promote the efficiency of the transportation system.


Author(s):  
Mohammad Hajiahmadi ◽  
Ruben Corthout ◽  
Chris Tampère ◽  
Bart De Schutter ◽  
Hans Hellendoorn

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