Definition of a merging assistant strategy using intelligent vehicles

Abstract

In the area of active traffic management, new technologies provide opportunities to improve the use of current infrastructure. Vehicles equipped with in-car communication systems are capable of exchanging messages with the infrastructure and other vehicles. This new capability offers many opportunities for traffic management. This paper presents a novel merging assistant strategy that exploits the communication capabilities of intelligent vehicles. The proposed control requires the cooperation of equipped vehicles on the main carriageway in order to create merging gaps for on-ramp vehicles released by a traffic light. The aim is to reduce disruptions to the traffic flow created by the merging vehicles. This paper focuses on the analytical formulation of the control algorithm, and the traffic flow theories used to define the strategy. The dynamics of the gap formation derived from theoretical considerations are validated using a microscopic simulation. The validation indicates that the control strategy mostly developed from macroscopic theory well approximates microscopic traffic behaviour. The results present encouraging capabilities of the system. The size and frequency of the gaps created on the main carriageway, and the space and time required for their creation are compatible with a real deployment of the system. Finally, we summarise the results of a previous study showing that the proposed merging strategy reduces the occurrence of congestion and the number of late-merging vehicles. This innovative control strategy shows the potential of using intelligent vehicles for facilitating the merging manoeuvre through use of emerging communications technologies.

Rule based control for merges: Assessment and case study

“…Most of the studies on rule based systems focus on longitudinal control such as [9], [10], [11], [12], [13] etc. In [9], a cooperative merging algorithm was developed for mixed traffic flow consisting of ACC and manually driven vehicles.…”

“…and the effect of the rule specific to merging case is unclear. [13] designed a merging assistant which creates gaps to facilitate the merging process using macroscopic theory. Assuming the possibility of V2V and V2I communication, the control strategy is combined with existing ramp meter techniques.…”

“…In most of the studies, though the control action deals with the merging vehicle and its corresponding vehicle on the mainline, other vehicles on the mainline are also influenced. In [10], [11] and [13], the effect of deceleration of the controlled vehicle on the upstream traffic is neglected. Similarly in [14], influence of lane changes on other vehicles and induced lane changes are not discussed.…”

Cooperative U-Turn Merging Behaviors and Their Impacts on Road Traffic in CVIS Environment

“…e proposed algorithms for cooperative merging can be classified from many aspects, such as the control method can be divided into centralized and decentralized [16][17][18]. All the vehicles are controlled automated or only partial vehicles can communicate between each other [19][20][21][22][23][24]. e vehicles on mainstream and on-ramp lane are coordinated controlled or only controlled for one stream of vehicles [25][26][27].…”

Improving Traffic Flow Efficiency at Motorway Lane Drops by Influencing Lateral Flows

“…Similar studies integrating VSL with other traffic control measures such as ramp metering have been developed and simulated for merging bottlenecks such as (14)(15)(16)(17). There are other studies microscopic in nature where the longitudinal motions of individual vehicles were controlled to create gaps near merging locations and to facilitate the LC process (18)(19)(20)(21)(22).…”