Traffic congestion usually occurs in certain areas or sections, which could be regarded as the reflection of road network disequilibrium caused by the traffic flow distribution, network structure, etc. It is found that unbalance analysis of the road network and the unbalanced points study could provide great support for the road network structure optimization, traffic capacity adjustment, and the efficiency improvement of road network resources. Furthermore, it is helpful to reduce the traffic congestion significantly. In order to design a method to analyze the disequilibrium of road networks to find out the unbalanced or bottleneck points, the road network structure, traffic flow distribution and the location of sections are considered in the analysis of road network disequilibrium, and the disequilibrium is measured using Gini coefficient and Theil index from road network attributes of influence and capability in this paper. First, section influence degree and section flow betweenness are employed to separately represent the differences in the influence relationship and capability distribution of a section from others in the network. Second, these two indicators are taken respectively as the input, and the road network equilibrium is analyzed multi-dimensionally using Gini coefficient and Theil index. The level of the disequilibrium is analyzed from the view of the overall network. Meanwhile, the contributions of a certain section to the disequilibrium of the whole network is also analyzed from the perspective of the section. Finally, a case study based on Beijing's regional road network is conducted, and the result shows the similar performance compared with the actual road network traffic situation, which verifies the feasibility and validity of the method in multi-dimension analysis of road network disequilibrium. INDEX TERMS Road traffic flow, traffic network equilibrium analysis, section influence degree, section flow betweenness, Gini coefficient.

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The traffic congestion in ramp areas is becoming increasingly prominent. In the upstream segments of ramp areas, effective management and control of lane-changing behaviors can improve the road capacity and make full use of the existing road resource. With the continuous development and application of connected vehicle technologies, lane-changing behaviors can be performed by vehicle groups. Under a connected vehicle environment, the lane-changing behaviors by vehicle groups are controlled in the upstream segment in a ramp area, and the lane-changing behaviors can be completed prior to entering the ramp area. Finally, lane-changing strategies are optimized and identified. VISSIM simulates these proposed strategies. This paper considers the delay as the output index for analyzing and comparing various strategies. The results demonstrate that the delays of different lane-changing strategies are also different. If the delays of ramp areas are to be substantially reduced, it is necessary to continuously optimize the lane-changing strategies by vehicle groups in the upstream segments. This optimization of lane-changing strategies will effectively regulate drivers’ lane-changing behaviors, improve road safety, and increase traffic capacity.

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