Traffic Monitoring and Control

Systems and Tools

Roberto Horowitz Carlos Canudas de Wit

Professor
Mechanical Engineering Director of Research at the CNRS
PATH Director NeCS Team director

Grenoble France

Pravin Varaiya
Professor in the Graduate School
EECS

University of California, Berkeley

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Traffic Monitoring and Control
Systems and Tools

Information flow in ITS

TOPL at UC Berkeley
Grenoble Traffic Lab

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 Real-time Information flow in ITS

Collecting Communicating Processing Serving

Real-time Information (ICT) flow P/3 3

 Information collection: measures, filter &
aggregate real-time information

Collecting Communicating Processing Serving

Large offer in new sensor technologies:

Wireless,
Heterogeneous,
Richness,
Mobile

P/4 4
 Communicate Information; build ups a
information flow from sensors to system

Collecting Communicating Processing Serving

New communication Technologies will open

opportunities:
Vehicle-to-Vehicle communications,
Vehicle-to-Infrastructure,
Infrastructure-to-Vehicles,
Information to users
P/5 5
 Processing (controlling) Information:
brings add value at the brut information

Collecting Communicating Processing Serving

Ramp meeting control (EURAMP source)

Variable speed control (Mail online source)

Ramp metering control: Variable velocity control:

Products already in use are not Under investigation,
optimal, Relay on Soft actuators (drivers),
Decentralized, High potentially
Room for a lot of improvements
P/6 6
 Information serving: services to users

Collecting Communicating Processing Serving

The results of the processed information is

transformed into user services:
Desktop applications,
Mobile phones,
On-board navigation devices,
Traffic control centers

P/7 7
 Expected impact & Benefits of using
feedback control

Expected Benefits

Decrease traveling time

Regularity
Reduce accidents
Decreases stop-go behavior
Reduce emission of pollutants
Minimize fuel consumptions

P/8 8
From Cambridge Systematics for the Minnesota Department of Transportation 2001
Traffic Monitoring and Control
Systems and Tools
Information flow in ITS
TOPL at UC Berkeley
Grenoble Traffic Lab

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 TOPL (Tools for Operations Planning)

TOPL TEAM TOPL PIs

Gunes Dervisoglu Roberto Horowitz

Gabriel Gomes Professor
Roberto Horowitz Mechanical Engineering
Alex A Kurzhanskiy horowitz@berkeley.edu
Xiao-Yun Lu
Ajith Muralidharan
Rene O. Sanchez Pravin Varaiya
Dongyan Su Professor
Pravin Varaiya EECS
varaiya@eecs.berkeley.edu

Supported by grants from Caltrans and National Science Foundations

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 Motivation

2007 USA Traffic Congestion Caused:

4.2 billion hours of additional travel time

11 billion litters of additional fuel

Congestion delay in California:

500,000 veh-hrs/day

will double in 2025

San Francisco I-80 Bay-shore morning
commute
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What is TOPL? (Tools for Operational Planning)
TOPL provide tools to
specify actions for traffic corridor operational
improvements:
ramp metering, incident management, traveler
information, and demand management;
quickly estimate the benefits of such actions

TOPL is
based on macro-simulation models that are
automatically calibrated using traffic data
can be extended for real time traffic monitoring,
prediction and control
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 R. Horowitz and P. Varaiya
Automatic modeling of freeway corridors
Help Caltrans achieve a 55% reduction in traffic congestion by 2025

Import corridor freeway

and arterial topology
Select & prune
into the AURORA
corridor from
simulator
Google maps

Use PeMS traffic data for automatic

model calibration
imputation of missing detector data

I880
corridor
Perform traffic operation control
simulation studies and test enhancements:
ramp metering, variable speed limits
incident management,
traveler information,
demand management, etc.
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 Examples: I210-W (Pasadena, CA) and 880-N (Bay Area)
Flow contours (PeMS vs simulation) <5% error
Simulated Flow [veh/hr] PeMS Flow [veh/hr]

I210-W
0 0
10000 10000

5 actual (PeMS) 9000

5
Simulation 9000

(Pasadena) 8000

7000
8000

7000

10 6000 10 6000

Time [hr]

Time [hr]
5000 5000

15 4000 15 4000

3000 3000

2000 2000
20 20
1000 1000

30 35 40 45 50 30 35 40 45 50
PostMile PostMile

Performance Measurements (PeMS vs simulation)

4
x 10
4500 18 1200
PeMS - 41359.7252 PeMS - 2382765.7187 PeMS - 2191.8674
4000 Simulated - 38954.0928 16 Simulated - 2293213.3404 Simulated - 2172.1491
1000
3500 14

3000 12 800

Delay [hr]
VMT [hr]
VHT [hr]
2500 10
600
2000 8

1500 6 400

1000 4

VMT Delay
VHT
200
500 2

0 0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 25 0 5 10 15 20 25
Time [hr] Time [hr] Time [hr]

PeMS

I880-N Accident simulation Simulation vs PeMS Traffic-responsive

Ramp metering 14
 Some details of TOPL Self-Callibration Procedure

Specify Freeway Network Network

Eg: I-210 EW , I-880S, I-80E Specification

Data Fundamental
Diagram
PeMS (Perfromance Measurement calibration
Systems) Data archive
Aggregate flow, density and Speed data
from loop detectors Ramp flow
imputation
Fault
Perform TOPL procedures for operations Detection
planning/ benefit assessment
Base Case
Simulation

Scenario Simulation
for Planning
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 A decision support structure for ATM

Deployment of Traffic
operational
measurements
measures

Prediction of
baseline and
hypothetical
Warnings and outcomes
recommendations Estimation of
Model
Analyzer Simulator missing flows
calibration
and split ratios

Current and historical

flows and densities
Scenario
selection
Scenarios Networks Traffic
and tactics data

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Towards a Smart Corridor TMC

alarm alarm alarm alarm

recurrent non-recur. productivity security

Road network congestion congestion loss assessment

scenario
trusted, fast corridor simulator
control database
center

traffic state estimation

SCADA and prediction

Supervisory Control And

Data Acquisition

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ATM Workflow

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Example I-80 W, 01/14/09 Calibration

Speed contours

Measured (PeMS) Simulated

24:00

18:00

12:00

6:00

0:00

Performance measures

VMT VHT

Measured (PeMS)
Simulated

0:00 6:0 12:00 18:00 24:00 0:00 6:0 12:00 18:00 24:00
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 Example: HOT lane management

20% HOT traffic 25% HOT traffic

GP lanes HOT lane

Changes in % traffic in HOT
lane produce changes in
total delay.

780 90
Evening delay

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Example I-80 W, 01/14/09 Best/worst case prediction

Current time 6:00 am

Prediction horizon: 2 hours
Uncertainty: 1% in capacity, 2% in demands

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Example I-80 W, 01/14/09 Best/worst case prediction

Past Future

VMT

VHT worst case

best case

Delay

Time (AM)
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Example I-80 W, 01/14/09 Best/worst case prediction

worst case
Density at

best case

Past Future

best case

Speed at worst case

Time (AM) 24
 Example I-80 W, 01/14/09 Best/worst case prediction

Density at

worst case
best case

Past Future

best case
worst case

Ramp metering at

Speed at

Time (AM) 25
 Example I-80 W, 01/14/09 Accident hot spot

accident
hot spot

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I-80 West accident strategy 4: ALINEA and VMS detour
ALINEA + queue control:
upstream of accident
VMS Detour: 10% use Carlson
and Central junctions to 580 EB

Carlson route Central route

VMS
detour

VMS accident
detour

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Traffic Monitoring and Control
Systems and Tools
Information flow in ITS
TOPL at UC Berkeley
Grenoble Traffic Lab

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 GTL is a WSN data collection platform for
real-time traffic modeling, prediction and
control
Show room
Data Base

Model-based
NeCS Research in
control model estimation & Control

DIR-CE

M2M network Public-Private

4 sensors per line each 400 m Partnership

Micro-Simulator

A national center of traffic data collection

Multi-purposes data exploitation (model, prediction,
control, statistics, etc.)
Wireless magnetic sensor Public Partnership: INRETS, DIR-CE, CG38, Metro,
Speed and density Research transfer to KARRUS-ITS (Grenoble start-up)
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Long-term GTL Strategy

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WP5 Benchmark: Traffic Modeling, Estimation and Control C. Canudas de Wit

Context: Grenoble south ring, wireless sensor networks

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