Dynamic signal control for at-grade intersections under preliminary autonomous vehicle environment

Abstract

Autonomous vehicle technology will transform fundamentally urban traffic systems. To better enhance the coming era of connected and autonomous vehicles, effective control strategies that interact wisely with these intelligent vehicles for signalized at-grade intersections are indispensable. Vehicle-to-infrastructure communication technology offers unprecedented clues to reduce the delay at signalized intersections by innovative information-based control strategies. This paper proposes a new dynamic control strategy for signalized intersections with vehicle-to-signal information. The proposed strategy is called periodic vehicle holding (PVH) strategy while the traffic signal can provide information for the vehicles that are approaching an intersection. Under preliminary autonomous vehicle (PAV) environment, left-turning and through-moving vehicles will be sorted based on different information they receive. The paper shows how PVH reorganizes traffic to increase the capacity of an intersection without causing severe spillback to the upstream intersection. Results show that PVH can reduce the delay by approximately 15% at a signalized intersection under relatively high traffic demand.

摘要

无人驾驶技术将会颠覆现有的城市交通系统。无人驾驶智能网联车的到来, 对平面交叉口信号 控制的效能提出了新的要求, 相应的控制策略应能够很好地迎合智能车的特点。通过前所未有的信息 手段, 新兴的车路协同技术能够帮助降低信号交叉口的延误。本文提出了一种基于车辆-交通信号通 讯的平面交叉口动态控制策略, 适用于初级无人驾驶环境。当车辆靠近交叉口时, 交通灯会给车辆发 送诱导车速等信息, 左转和直行车基于相应的信息会在交通流中被分开。本文阐述了这种动态控制策 略如何重新组织交通流, 在不对上游交叉口产生显著影响的情况下, 来提升该交叉口的通行能力。结 果表明, 这种控制策略在较高的交通需求下, 能够降低约 15% 的路口延误。