Publications / 2024 Proceedings of the 41st ISARC, Lille, France

Variable Speed Limits Control for Smart Work Zone with Connected Vehicles

Shuming Du, Saiedeh Razavi, Harith Absulsattar
Pages 1120-1127 (2024 Proceedings of the 41st ISARC, Lille, France, ISBN 978-0-6458322-1-1, ISSN 2413-5844)
Abstract:

Freeway work zones with lane closures can cause traffic disruption and congestion with increased travel time, safety risks, and emissions. Variable speed limit (VSL) control has been widely studied to mitigate the negative impacts of work zone lane closures. To ensure effective VSL control, accurate detection of traffic conditions is important. However, stationary sensors from distant upstream or merging areas of a work zone can only provide location-based detections, which may not be sufficient for effective VSL control. Therefore, this study proposes a VSL control system for a smart work zone with a weighted traffic density estimation algorithm using data from stationary sensors and connected vehicles (CV). With location-based traffic detections from distant upstream and merging areas of a smart work zone, data from CVs in locations between the stationary sensors are used to obtain the weighted density. This weighted density is then fed to a feedback VSL controller, which can dynamically define the appropriate speed limits to reduce the negative impacts of the work zone closures. The proposed VSL controller was implemented and evaluated under a calibrated freeway work zone environment using the traffic simulator SUMO. The results show that the system can provide accurate traffic density estimation and effectively improve traffic mobility, safety, and environmental sustainability near the work zone area.

Keywords: Variable Speed Limits Control, Stationary Sensors, Connected Vehicle, Weighted Traffic Density, Smart Work Zone