Integrated ramp metering and lane-changing feedback control at motorway bottlenecks

Abstract

Considering the target of an operating effectively transportation system, we propose here a novel methodology for integrated lane-changing and ramp metering control that exploits the presence of connected and partly automated vehicles. In particular, we assume that a percentage of vehicles can receive and implement specific control tasks (e.g., lane-changing commands). A novel approach is designed to robustly maximise the throughput at motorway bottlenecks employing a Linear Quadratic Integral (LQI) regulator in combination with an anti-windup scheme, based on a simple Linear Time Invariant (LTI) model. The method is evaluated via simulation experiments, performed on a first-order, multi-lane, macroscopic traffic flow model, also featuring the capacity drop phenomenon, which allows to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed methodology and to highlight the improvement in terms of traffic efficiency.