Real-time estimation of critical vehicle accumulation for maximum network throughput

Abstract

Perimeter traffic flow control has recently been found to be a practical and efficient control scheme in mitigating traffic congestion in urban road networks. This control scheme aims at stabilising the accumulation of vehicles of the socalled network fundamental diagram near critical accumulation to achieve maximum network throughput. Nevertheless, the maximum throughput in urban road networks may be observed over a range of accumulation-values. In this work, an adaptive perimeter flow control strategy is proposed that allows the automatic monitoring of the critical accumulation to help maintain the accumulation near the optimal range of accumulation-values, while network's throughput is maximised. To this end, we design a Kalman filter-based estimation scheme that utilises real-time measurements of circulating flow and accumulation of vehicles to produce estimates of the currently prevailing critical accumulation. We use real data from an urban area with 70 sensors and show that the area exhibits a network fundamental diagram with low scatter. We demonstrate that the fundamental diagram is reproduced under different days but its shape and critical occupancy depend on the applied semi-real-time signal control and the distribution of congestion in the network. Results from the application of the estimation algorithm to the experimental data indicate good estimation accuracy and performance, and rapid tracking behaviour.