Co-design of traffic network topology and control measures

Reference:
Z. Cong, B. De Schutter, and R. Babuska, "Co-design of traffic network topology and control measures," Transportation Research Part C, vol. 54, pp. 56-73, May 2015.

Abstract:
The two main directions to improve traffic flows in networks involve changing the network topology and introducing new traffic control measures. In this paper, we consider a co-design approach to apply these two methods jointly to improve the interaction between different methods and to get a better overall performance. We aim at finding the optimal network topology and the optimal parameters of traffic control laws at the same time by solving a co-optimization problem. However, such an optimization problem is usually highly non-linear and non-convex, and it possibly involves a mixed-integer form. Therefore, we discuss four different solution frameworks that can be used for solving the co-optimization problem, according to different requirements on the computational complexity and speed. A simulation-based study is implemented on the Singapore freeway network to illustrate the co-design approach and to compare the four different solution frameworks.