Integration of adaptive traffic control and traffic assignment: A demand-responsive decentralized control strategy

This research expands and evaluates an adaptive traffic control strategy looking for opportunities to integrate traffic control and travel information. In order to allow the network to react in real-time to the changes in traffic patterns due to the information provided. The approach taken from the control perspective is to implement adaptive traffic control strategies through corridor networks. The adaptive control strategy chosen for this research corresponds to the “Optimized Policies for Adaptive Control” (OPAC). Several enhancements were performed to the OPAC approach, and a Dynamic Rolling horizon Optimized Policy for Adaptive Control (DynaROPAC) is obtained. The primary result of this approach is to effectively control the signal timings of n intersections in a dynamic traffic assignment environment, obtaining significant improvements in the entire system performance. The integrated operational strategy is evaluated using a simulation-assignment program. In addition, several practical aspects of dynamic modeling of urban networks are presented.