Speed Limit Zone Length Control Strategy under Mixed Traffic Flow Environment: An Approach Considering Variable Speed Limit and Lane Change
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 150, Issue 11
Abstract
The rapid advancement of car networking and autonomous driving technologies allows for more sophisticated active traffic management. Several studies have demonstrated variable speed limit (VSL) and lane change (LC) control to have the potential to smooth traffic flow and improve bottleneck throughput and road safety. However, VSL control zone length has lacked further exploration as a control parameter. This paper proposes a novel human driving vehicle (HV) discretionary lane-changing model that considers the human driver’s lane change expectation and incorporates driver types and random behaviors to model mixed traffic flow, which more realistically reflects the behavioral differences between connected and autonomous driving vehicles (CAVs) and HVs. Moreover, a multisection cell transmission model (CTM) VSL strategy is adopted to analyze traffic performance under different VSL control zone lengths and CAV penetration rates in the simulation, which provides a valuable reference for selecting the optimal VSL control zone length. Simulation results show that VSL with LC control improves traffic safety between the VSL control zone and the bottleneck. Still, under high traffic demand, control measures may negatively affect the section further upstream. The research also discovered that when control measures are activated, the increase in CAV penetration rate does not necessarily improve traffic efficiency, but it makes the traffic flow more harmonious.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by National Key R&D Program of China under Grant 2020YFC1512004. Authors Xiang Li and Bo Chen contributed equally to this work.
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Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 150 • Issue 11 • November 2024
Copyright
© 2024 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 9, 2023
Accepted: May 31, 2024
Published online: Sep 4, 2024
Published in print: Nov 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Feb 4, 2025
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Business management
- Driver behavior
- Engineering fundamentals
- Human and behavioral factors
- Infrastructure
- Models (by type)
- Practice and Profession
- Public administration
- Public health and safety
- Safety
- Traffic congestion
- Traffic engineering
- Traffic flow
- Traffic management
- Traffic models
- Traffic safety
- Traffic speed
- Transportation engineering
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