Agent-based simulation framework for mixed traffic of cars,pedestrians and trams

In this paper, we report on the construction of a new framework for simulating mixed traffic consisting of cars, trams, and pedestrians that can be used to support discussions about road management, signal control, and public transit. Specifically, a layered road structure that was designed for car traffic simulations was extended to interact with an existing one-dimensional (1D) car-following model and a two-dimensional (2D) discrete choice model for pedestrians. The car model, pedestrian model, and interaction rules implemented in the proposed framework were verified through simulations involving simple road environments. The resulting simulated values were in near agreement with the empirical data. We then used the proposed framework to assess the impact of a tramway extension plan for a real city. The simulation results showed that the impact of the proposed tramway on existing car traffic would not be serious, and by extension, implied that the proposed framework could help stakeholders decide on expansion scenarios that are satisfactory to both tram users and private car owners.     

变邻域搜索求解公共交通乘务调度问题

公共交通乘务调度问题是一个将车辆工作切分为一组合法班次的过程,它是NP难问题,许多求解方法的效率都与班次评价密不可分,本文通过裁剪TOPSIS方法(Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution)设计了TOPSIS班次评价方法.此外,通过裁剪变邻域搜索算法使之适合求解乘务调度问题,提出了基于变邻域搜索的乘务调度方法(Crew Scheduling Approach Based on Variable Neighbourhood Search,VNS),其中,并入了TOPSIS班次评价方法在调度过程中进行班次评价,设计了两种带概率的复合邻域结构以增加搜索的多样性,帮助跳出局部最优,在VNS中利用模拟退火算法进行局部搜索.利用中国公共交通中的11组实例进行了测试,测试结果表明,VNS优于两种新近提出的乘务调度方法,且其结果关于班次数接近于下界.     

Model based urban traffic control,part II: Coordinated model predictive controllers

The present paper describes how to use coordination between neighbouring intersections in order to improve the performance of urban traffic controllers. Both the local MPC (LMPC) introduced in the companion paper (Hao et al., 2018) and the coordinated MPC (CMPC) introduced in this paper use the urban cell transmission model (UCTM) (Hao et al., 2018) in order to predict the average delay of vehicles in the upstream links of each intersection, for different scenarios of switching times of the traffic lights at that intersection. The feedback controller selects the next switching times of the traffic light corresponding to the shortest predicted average delay. While the local MPC (Hao et al., 2018) only uses local measurements of traffic in the links connected to the intersection in comparing the performance of different scenarios, the CMPC approach improves the accuracy of the performance predictions by allowing a control agent to exchange information about planned switching times with control agents at all neighbouring intersections. Compared to local MPC the offline information on average flow rates from neighbouring intersections is replaced in coordinated MPC by additional online information on when the neighbouring intersections plan to send vehicles to the intersection under control. To achieve good coordination planned switching times should not change too often, hence a cost for changing planned schedules from one decision time to the next decision time is added to the cost function. In order to improve the stability properties of CMPC a prediction of the sum of squared queue sizes is used whenever some downstream queues of an intersection become too long. Only scenarios that decrease this sum of squares of local queues are considered for possible implementation. This stabilization criterion is shown experimentally to further improve the performance of our controller. In particular it leads to a significant reduction of the queues that build up at the edges of the traffic region under control. We compare via simulation the average delay of vehicles travelling on a simple 4 by 4 Manhattan grid, for traffic lights with pre-timed control, traffic lights using the local MPC controller (Hao et al., 2018), and coordinated MPC (with and without the stabilizing condition). These simulations show that the proposed CMPC achieves a significant reduction in delay for different traffic conditions in comparison to these other strategies.     

Field tests of a dynamic green driving strategy based on inter-vehicle communication

This paper presents the design and results for field tests regarding the environmental benefits in stop-and-go traffic of an algorithmic green driving strategy based on inter-vehicle communication (IVC), which was proposed in Yang and Jin (2014). The green driving strategy dynamically calculates advisory speed limits for vehicles equipped with IVC devices so as to smooth their speed profiles and reduce their emissions and fuel consumption. For the field tests, we develop a smartphone-based IVC system, in which vehicles’ speeds and locations are collected by GPS and accelerometer sensors embedded in smartphones, and communications among vehicles are enabled by specially designed smartphone applications, a central server, and 4G cellular networks. Six field tests are carried out on an uninterrupted ring road under slow or fast stop-and-go traffic conditions. We compare the performances of three alternatives: no green driving, heuristic green driving, and the IVC-based algorithmic green driving. Results show that heuristic green driving has better smoothing and environmental effects than no green driving, but the IVC-based algorithmic green driving outperforms both. In the future, we are interested in field tests under more realistic traffic conditions.     

Conflict-free arrival and departure trajectory planning for parallel runway with advanced point-merge system

In this paper, an efficient trajectory planning system is proposed to solve the integration of arrivals and departures on parallel runways with a novel route network system. Our first effort is made in designing an advanced Point Merge (PM) route network named Multi-Level Point Merge (ML-PM) to meet the requirements of parallel runway operations. Then, more efforts are paid on finding a complete and efficient framework capable of dynamically modelling the integration of arrival and departure trajectories on parallel runways, modelling the conflict detection and resolution in presence of curved trajectory and radius-to-fix merging process. After that, a suitable mathematical optimization formulation is built up. Receding Horizon Control (RHC) and Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithms are proposed to search the near-optimal solution for the large scale trajectories in routine dense operations. Taking Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA) as a study case, the experimental results show that our system shows good performances on the management of arrivals and departures. It can automatically solve all the potential conflicts in presence of dense traffic flows. With its unique ML-PM route network, it can realize a shorter flying time and a near-Continuous Descent Approach (CDA) descent for arrival aircraft, an economical climbing for departure aircraft, an easier runway allocation together with trajectory control solutions. It shows a good and dynamic sequencing efficiency in Terminal Manoeuvring Area (TMA). In mixed ML-PM mode, under tested conditions, our proposed system can increase throughput at BCIA around 26%, compared with baseline. The methodology defined here could be easily applied to airports worldwide.     

上海松江区现代有轨电车规划研究

现代有轨电车因其环保、舒适、高效、低造价、高品质等特点,在国际上得到广泛应用,我国多个城市也在规划和建设之中。但是,由于其在国内尚为一种全新的交通方式,没有标准或规范予以指导,规划及设计体系不完善,有些已建项目已呈现问题。文章结合上海松江区规划背景及交通特征,阐述有轨电车示范线T1、T2线的布局规划、建设的必要性及适应性,为即将开展有轨电车规划及建设的城市提供借鉴与参考。     

CACC车头时距与混合交通流稳定性的解析关系

研究协同自适应巡航控制(Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control，CACC)车头时距对不同CACC比例下混合交通流稳定性的影响关系，进而为CACC车头时距设计提供参考. 应用优化速度模型(Optimal Velocity Model，OVM)作为手动车辆的跟驰模型，PATH真车实验标定的模型作为CACC车辆的跟驰模型. 基于传递函数理论，推导混合交通流稳定性判别条件，计算关于CACC比例与平衡态速度的混合交通流稳定域. 分析混合交通流在任意速度下稳定所需满足的临界CACC比例与CACC车头时距的解析关系，提出随CACC比例增加的可变 CACC车头时距设计策略，并通过数值仿真实验验证所提可变CACC车头时距策略的正确性. 研究结果表明：在所提可变CACC车头时距策略下，CACC车头时距随CACC比例增加而逐渐降低，避免取值较大影响混合交通流通行能力的提升；当CACC比例大于35%时，混合交通流在任意速度下稳定.研究结果可为大规模CACC真车实验的实施提供理论设计参考.     

共享停车泊位数量可变下交通流逐日演化规律

为了揭示在共享停车泊位数量可变条件下的网络交通流逐日演化规律,首先构建了共享泊位交易系统,并考虑了交易市场中的共享泊位提供者可以选择2种异质性的价格预期方式,即理性预期方式和幼稚预期方式;而后对共享泊位的均衡价格、2种提供者的占比差、高峰时段公交和小汽车需求的演化规律进行了分析;其次,以2条平行路径的路网为例,对网络交通流量分配的最终演化结果进行了分析;最后,在对上述2个系统的最终演化状态给出定量判据后,以北京市实际路网为例进行了数值试验。理论分析和数值试验结果表明:①对于共享泊位交易系统,若供给曲线斜率小于需求曲线斜率,则共享泊位交易系统的唯一均衡解可实现无条件渐进稳定;否则若理性提供者的交易与预测成本之和大于幼稚提供者,则存在临界提供者选择强度,使得共享泊位交易系统在大于此临界值条件下出现分岔或混沌现象;②对于网络交通流系统,若出行成本对路径流量敏感度小,路径选择概率对出行成本敏感度小,小汽车需求量不大,则系统唯一的均衡解可能是渐进稳定的,否则系统会出现分岔或混沌状态;③当共享泊位交易系统处于渐进稳定状态时,若提供者对共享泊位的价格变动不敏感,用户对其价格变动敏感,潜在共享泊位需求量不大,理性提供者的交易与预测成本之和并非远大于幼稚提供者,提供者选择强度不大,则由于受到共享泊位交易总量的限制,高峰时段的均衡小汽车需求不大,导致网络交通流系统的最终演化状态容易趋向于渐进稳定;④当共享泊位交易系统处于混沌状态时,网络交通流系统会产生更加严重的分岔与混沌现象。