The Smart Highway - Modern Traffic Control

Hans Hellendoorn

Roads and road networks are becoming increasingly intelligent and dynamic due to the use of sensors, actuators, modeling and control. Within DCSC a subgroup with several PhD and MSc students is working on this topic. Traffic control is complicated because there are only a limited number of traffic measures and the effect of traffic measures depends very much on the acceptance of the drivers. Therefore, a continuous interaction between a measure and its effect is needed. In this presentation we will present a number of projects in traffic control, viz. on coordinated ramp metering, on interaction between freeway and urban control, on the combination of traffic information and traffic control, and on shockwaves. We will show the need of well-developed control tools like model predictive and hybrid control, the need of stability and robustness proofs, and we will show how modern control theory plays a role in a quick implementation of new traffic measures.