MSc Thesis Proposal

Trip-oriented traffic control for urban ring roads

Mentors: M. van den Berg and B. De Schutter

Keywords: traffic control, optimization

Description:
When congestion occurs on urban ring roads, this is often caused by "disturbances" such as weaving or lane changing that take place before or after on- and off-ramps. Hence, to obtain a smoother traffic flow, there currently is a trend in local traffic policies to discourage the use of urban ringroads for local traffic (i.e., for trips which have their origin and their destination within the city center) and to reserve the ring road for long distance traffic. However, implementing such a policy in practice is not an easy task in the current context (especially as road tolling ("rekeningrijden") will not be implemented in the foreseeable future).

The first aim of this project is to investigate how local traffic can be discouraged from using the ring road using state-of-the-art traffic control equipment: what kind of sensors are needed, which actuators (ramp metering, variable speed limits, dynamic route guidance, ...) can be used, which data should measured, etc. Next, a suitable traffic model should be selected, and an appropriate traffic control framework should be developed.

Illustration of the goal of trip-oriented traffic control

Figure: Illustration of the goal of trip-oriented traffic control.

If you are interested in selecting this project as your MSc project, please come along or send us an email for more information.

This page is maintained by Bart De Schutter.