Traffic Operations and Management

Conservation and/or balance laws on networks in the recent years have been the subject of intense study, since a wide range of different applications in real life can be covered by such a research.

This book focuses on control problems for conservation laws, i.e., equations of the type: ∂tu+∂xf(u)=0ut+(f(u))x=0,$$\displaystyle \partial _t\, u + \partial _x\, f(u) = 0 \qquad u_t+(f(u))_x=0, $$where u:ℝ+×ℝ→ℝn$$u:\mathbb {R}^+\times \mathbb {R} \to \mathbb {R}^n$$is the vector of conserved quantities and f:ℝn→ℝn$$f:\mathbb {R}^n\to \mathbb {R}^n$$is the flux. Most results will be given for the scalar case (n = 1), but we will present few results valid in the general case.

The technological advancements in terms of vehicle on-board sensors and actuators, as well as for infrastructures, open an unprecedented scenario for the management of vehicular traffic. We focus on the problem of smoothing traffic by controlling a small number of autonomous vehicles immersed in the bulk traffic stream. Specifically, we aim at dissipating stop-and-go waves, which are ubiquitous and proven to increase fuel consumption tremendously and reduce. Our approach is holistic, as it is based on a large collaborative effort, which ranges from mathematical models for traffic and...

This study focuses on the comprehensive investigation of stop-and-go waves appearing in closed-circuit ring road traffic wherein we evaluate various longitudinal dynamical models for vehicles. It is known that the behavior of human-driven vehicles, with other traffic elements such as density held constant, could stimulate stop-and-go waves, which do not dissipate on the circuit ring road. Stop-and-go waves can be dissipated by adding automated vehicles (AVs) to the ring. Thorough investigations of the performance of AV longitudinal control algorithms were carried out in Flow, which is an...