Methods for traffic management efficiency improvement in cities

Abstract

Abstract A methodology for traffic management in cities provides for extensive use of computer technologies. Modern international experience shows that traffic management in the urban street and road network, first of all, requires a city-wide management system (intelligent transportation system, ITS). Development of a social process model is a complicated task that can be solved under rather severe restrictions. Therefore, most traffic management tasks are not formalized but solved empirically. Two basic approaches to development of network mathematical models of traffic flows, based on a set of analytical models and on microlevel simulation models, are considered by the authors. Capabilities of various software tools that allow performing modeling are reviewed. As a result, a method for forecasting network control actions affecting traffic flows, based on a piecewise-constant approximation of a traffic flow intensity function of time, is suggested. An example of forecasting control actions (cycle shifts) to ensure coordinated control on highways is given. The suggested approach to modeling of traffic flows in cities is rather simple and efficient. Therefore, it can be of practical interest and can be used when forecasting network control actions in intelligent transportation systems, including in real time and for congested sections of the street-and-road network.