AN INTEGRATED TOLL-RAMP CONTROL MODEL FOR REAL-TIME FREEWAY CONGESTION MANAGEMENT

Abstract

This paper presents a novel freeway traffic congestion management system, which coordinates both dynamic toll pricing and ramp control strategies. The proposed integrated traffic control model is formulated in the form of a discrete-time nonlinear stochastic system built based on the fundamentals of stochastic optimal control methodology, and executed through an extended Kalman filtering based algorithm. With the aid of the Paramics microscopic traffic simulator, numerical studies under various simulated freeway congestion scenarios are conducted. Compared with the performance of the control-free strategy, the numerical results have demonstrated the relative superiority of the model in saving freeway link travel time and increasing hourly throughput by 16.4% and 16.5%, respectively.