The impact of map orientation and generalisation on congestion decisions: a comparison of schematic-egocentric and topographic-allocentric maps

Map information for drivers is usually presented in an allocentric-topographic form (as with printed maps) or in an egocentric-schematic form (as with road signs). The advent of new variable message boards on UK motorways raises the possibility of presenting road maps to reflect congestion ahead. Should these maps be allocentric-topographic or egocentric-schematic? This was assessed in an eye tracking study, with participants viewing maps of a motorway network in order to identify whether any congestion was relevant to their intended route. The schematic-egocentric maps were responded to most accurately with shorter fixation durations suggesting easier processing. In particular, the driver's entrance and intended exit from the map were attended to more in the allocentric maps. Individual differences in mental rotation ability also seem to contribute to poor performance on allocentric maps. The results favour schematic-egocentric maps for roadside congestion information, but also provide theoretical insights into map-rotation and individual differences.

Statement of Relevance: This study informs designers and policy makers about optimum representations of traffic congestion on roadside variable message signs and, furthermore, demonstrates that individual differences contribute to problems with processing certain sign types. Schematic-egocentric representations of a motorway network produced the best results, as noted in behavioural and eye movement measures.     

拥堵程度时变的随机路网可变元胞传输模型

为了描述拥堵程度时变的随机路网,提出了一种新的可变元胞传输模型。该模型是以路网各车道为基础,将各车道分为车道元胞和交叉口元胞。同一车道的两个元胞“此消彼长”,相互作用。分别建立两种元胞模型,将车道元胞的平均车速和交叉口元胞拥堵程度作为模型输出。根据模型输出结果判断各车道元胞和交叉口元胞的拥堵程度。为描述路网的随机特性,建模及仿真数据的设置增加了路网的随机性。仿真结果表明：路网中各车道元胞和各交叉口元胞的拥堵程度时变,提出的可变元胞传输模型能够描述路网的随机性。     

A Road Timetable to aid vehicle routing and scheduling

Both within and between urban conurbations, the time of a journey and the corresponding shortest path in a road network from an origin to a destination may depend on the time of the day, the day of the week and the season of the year. Significant journey time differences occur mainly due to recurring instances and variations in levels of traffic congestion throughout the year. This paper examines the issues involved in constructing a database of road times for a road network that uses time-dependent data on the travel times for individual roads in the network to provide the expected times and distances between locations for journeys starting at different times. The benefits of time-dependent vehicle routing and scheduling systems are demonstrated by using real-world data for the road network in the north west of England.     

VMS行程时间诱导效益分析仿真系统

利用可变情报板(VMS)发布行程时间信息是缓解交通拥挤的有效手段,提出了一种VMS行程时间诱导效益分析仿真系统,并对仿真系统进行设计与开发。运用该仿真系统对两起点两终点的路网进行建模仿真,仿真结果表明,VMS行程时间对于应对交通事件(如需求激增)引起的拥挤作用显著;驾驶员的信息关注率值越大,路网运行效益改善率越明显。研究旨在为相关部门设计、评价控制策略,优化路网运行效益提供辅助决策依据。     

基于复杂网络的路网交通拥堵评估仿真模型

为了能够深入分析路网交通拥堵动态演进过程, 为交通拥堵治理提供决策分析工具, 提出了一个基于复杂网络的路网拥堵评估仿真模型。通过将路段阻抗概念引入复杂网络理论, 实现了路网拓扑模型和流量模型的结合; 此外, 还提出了虚拟测试车辆遍历的路网通行能力评估方法, 对不同路网条件下的道路通行能力进行评估。最后在PC系统上实现了完整的路网拥堵评估仿真系统, 并利用该系统对拥堵路段数量、交通流量和路网拓扑结构等因素对路网通行能力的影响进行了仿真分析。仿真实验结果与经典交通理论分析结果一致, 并能反映更多的动态过程信息, 表明该模型能够准确有效地进行交通路网拥堵评估, 可以为相应的交通拥堵管理决策提供依据。     

Impact of Traffic Management on Black Carbon Emissions: a Microsimulation Study

This paper investigates the effectiveness of traffic management tools, including traffic signal control and en-route navigation provided by variable message signs (VMS), in reducing traffic congestion and associated emissions of CO₂, NO_x, and black carbon. The latter is among the most significant contributors of climate change, and is associated with many serious health problems. This study combines traffic microsimulation (S-Paramics) with emission modeling (AIRE) to simulate and predict the impacts of different traffic management measures on a number traffic and environmental Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) assessed at different spatial levels. Simulation results for a real road network located in West Glasgow suggest that these traffic management tools can bring a reduction in travel delay and BC emission respectively by up to 6 % and 3 % network wide. The improvement at local levels such as junctions or corridors can be more significant. However, our results also show that the potential benefits of such interventions are strongly dependent on a number of factors, including dynamic demand profile, VMS compliance rate, and fleet composition. Extensive discussion based on the simulation results as well as managerial insights are provided to support traffic network operation and control with environmental goals. The study described by this paper was conducted under the support of the FP7-funded CARBOTRAF project.     

Estimating congestion zones and travel time indexes based on the floating car data

Efficiently predicting traffic congestion benefits various traffic stakeholders, from regular commuters and logistic operators to urban planners and responsible authorities. This study aims to give a high-quality estimation of traffic conditions from a large historical Floating Car Data (FCD) with two main goals: (i) estimation of congestion zones on a large road network, and (ii) estimation of travel times within congestion zones in the form of the time-varying Travel Time Indexes (TTIs). On the micro level, the traffic conditions, in the form of speed profiles were mapped to links in the road network. On the macro level, the observed area was divided into a fine-grained grid and represented as an image where each pixel indicated congestion intensity. Spatio-temporal characteristics of congestion zones were determined by morphological closing operation and Monte Carlo simulation coupled with temporal clustering. As a case study, the road network in Croatia was selected with spatio-temporal analysis differentiating between the summer season and the rest of the year season. To validate the proposed approach, three comparisons were conducted: (i) comparison to real routes' travel times driven in a controlled manner, (ii) comparison to historical trajectory dataset, and (iii) comparison to the state-of-the-art method. Compared to the real measured travel times, using zone's time-varying TTIs for travel time estimation resulted in the mean relative percentage error of 4.13%, with a minor difference to travel times estimated on the micro level, and a significant improvement compared to the current Croatian industrial navigation. The results support the feasibility of estimating congestion zones and time-varying TTIs on a large road network from FCD, with the application in urban planning and time-dependent routing operations due to: significant reduction in the data volume without notable quality loss, and meaningful reduction in the pre-processing computation time.     

一个适用于DTN网络的拥塞避免与解除方案

DTN(delay-tolerant network,延迟容忍网络)的网络特点及其采用的托管传输机制易造成网络受限资源(如缓存、带宽等)的耗尽,形成网络拥塞,导致网络性能的下降。传统TCP拥塞控制机制不适用于DTN网络。提出了一个全新的适用于DTN网络的拥塞避免与拥塞解除方案。拥塞避免根据在足够小的时间段内DTN链路的传输延迟和传输能力的确定性,建立DTN网络有向多径图,对数据发送速率、接收速率、带宽使用等链路负载分割与约束控制,尽可能地提高网络资源的利用率。拥塞解除在节点存储资源划分的基础上,通过节点内存储资源转换与节点间报文转移相结合的方法,解除DTN网络的拥塞状况。仿真结果显示,与其他DTN拥塞控制机制相比,所提方案具有良好的报文交付率、网络开销等网络性能。     

Optimal Information Location for Adaptive Routing

One strategy for addressing uncertain roadway conditions and travel times is to provide real-time travel information to drivers through variable message signs, highway advisory radio, or other means. However, providing such information is often costly, and decisions must be made about the most useful places to inform drivers about local conditions. This paper addresses this question, building on adaptive routing algorithms describing optimal traveler behavior in stochastic networks with en route information. Three specific problem contexts are formulated: routing of a single vehicle, assignment of multiple vehicles in an uncongested network, and adaptive equilibrium with congestion. A network contraction procedure is described which makes an enumerative algorithm computationally feasible for small-to-medium sized roadway networks, along with heuristics which can be applied for large-scale networks. These algorithms are demonstrated on three networks of varying size.     

DTN中依据报文质量的拥塞控制策略

为了解决受限网络环境所带来的低的递交率的问题,DTN（Delay Tolerant Networks）通常采用多拷贝路由（multiple-copy routing）机制来实现报文的有效递交。但在实际情况下,网络中节点的缓存是受限的,当网络中的总报文数大于所有节点的缓存容量和时,网络就发生了拥塞。针对网络拥塞,通过计算节点缓存中的报文质量（Quality of Message）以确定报文丢弃的优先级,合理地丢弃报文控制拥塞。仿真结果显示与其他拥塞控制策略相比,该路由策略能得到更好的网络性能。     

基于拥堵系数的道路交通网络关键路段辨识

城市道路交通的路段信息与车流量信息对道路交通的安全、高效运行至关重要.在交通高峰时期,通过对关键路段加以控制,可实现整个道路交通网络的完全能控.为寻找路网中的关键路段,将道路网络的交叉口-节点模型转化为道路网络的路段-节点模型,基于路段信息与车流量信息提出拥堵系数来衡量道路交通网络的车辆拥堵程度,并将其作为道路网络的路段-节点模型的边权重,最后运用关键路段辨识算法对道路交通网络的关键路段进行辨识.以沈阳市皇姑区主城区道路为例建立以拥堵系数为权重的网络模型, 按照所提方法辨识的关键路段数量为14条,约占道路网络总路段数的14.3%,具有较低的控制成本,且大部分为由北向南方向和由西向东方向.其中8条路段分布在皇姑区道路实时拥堵排行前5名,约占关键路段总数的57.1%,表明所给出的关键路段更多地分布在交通状态较为拥堵的路段上,符合实际情况.     

面向诱导的交通状态信息提取方法

为实现可变信息板（Variable Message Signs,VMS）的交通状态信息提取,选取速度、饱和度与交叉口平均延误作为交通参数,提出了基于模糊推理的关联路段交通状态信息提取方法。针对驾驶员的VMS信息响应特性,设计了面向拥挤状态的VMS诱导策略,在关联路段均处于拥挤状态时基于Vague集对交通状态进行排序,以判别交通状态相对最优的关联路段进行发布。以实际算例验证了该方法的有效性,所提出的VMS诱导策略能够逐步引导拥挤交通流的分流,并为驾驶员在拥挤状态下进行路径选择提供决策支持。     

A collaborative multi-agent message transmission mechanism in intelligent transportation system – A smart freeway example

Although drivers obtain road information through radio broadcasting or specific in-car equipment, there is still a wide gap between the synchronization of information and the actual conditions on the road. In the absence of adequate information, drivers often react to conditions with inefficient behaviors that do not contribute to their own driving goals, but increase traffic complication. Therefore, this study applies the features of information exchanged between “Multi-Agents” and mutual communication and collaboration mechanisms to intelligent transportation systems (ITS). If drivers could achieve distributed communication, share their driving information, and submit their own reasoned driving advice to others, many traffic situations will improve effectively. Additionally, the efficiency of the computing processes could have improved through distributed communication. At the same time, this paper proposes an architecture design, including vehicle components, OBU (On-Board Unit) devices and roadside device components (Roadside Unit) with hybrid architecture, which is intended to establish intelligent diversified road services to provide information support and applications.     

Towards generating network of bikeways from Mapillary data

Nowadays, biking is flourishing in many Western cities. While many roads are used for both cars and bicycles, buffered bike lanes are marked for the safety of cyclists. In many cities, segregated paths are built up to have physical separation from motor vehicles. These types of biking ways are regarded as attributes in geographic information system (GIS) data. This information is required and important in the service of route planning, as cyclists may prefer certain types of bikeways. This paper presents a framework for generating networks of bikeways with attribute information from the data collected on the collaborative street view data platform Mapillary. The framework consists of two layers: The first layer focuses on constructing a bikeway road network using Global Positioning System (GPS) information of Mapillary images. Mapillary sequences are classified into walking, cycling, driving (ordinary road), and driving (motorway) trajectories based on the transportation mode with a trained XGBoost classifier. The bikeway road network is then extracted from cycling and driving (ordinary road) trajectories using a raster-based method. The second layer focuses on extracting attribute information from Mapillary images. Cycling-specific information (i.e., bicycle signs/markings) is extracted using a two-stage detection and classification model. A series of quantitative evaluations based on a case study demonstrated the ability and potential of the framework for extracting bikeway road information to enrich the existing OSM cycling road data.     

基于Storm的高速公路实时交通指数评估方法的研究与实现

随着高速公路飞速的发展,出现的拥堵增加、监控困难等问题也日益严峻。首先本文在北京市城市交通拥堵指数的基础上,提出了利用交通指数对高速公路运行状况进行评估的方法,然后基于Storm大数据平台,实现了交通指数评估系统中的数据处理、分析、指数后台计算关键算法,最后通过手机APP、微信公众号等形式,实时地发布高速公路交通指数。实验结果表明：高速公路交通指数不仅可以反映整体的高速运行状况,也可以反映特定高速或者特定高速区间的实时拥堵情况,还可以实时监测高速路网的拥堵情况,为居民出行提供参考,对缓解道路拥堵起到积极作用。     

车载自组织网络中基于停车骨干网络的数据传输

车载自组织网络(vehicular ad hoc networks,简称VANETs)具有网络间歇连通、节点高速移动及动态的网络拓扑结构等特性,如何有效地实现车辆间的数据传输,成为VANETs的重大挑战.现有研究工作基于历史交通流量或历史延迟预测路段当前交通状况的方法并不可靠.此外,要实现高效的数据路由传输,配置大量路边基础设施节点(deploying roadside unit,简称RSU)是一种可行方案,但通常需要额外开销.基于城市区域长时间拥有大量地上停放车辆这一事实,提出了基于停车骨干网络的数据传输策略PBBD(parking backbone based data delivery),不需要配置任何地面基础设施,而是把地面的停放车辆组成一个虚拟的停车覆盖网络,通过该停车覆盖网实现数据的传输.为此,首先,对于每一条道路,把路边和非路边停放车辆组成一个尽可能长的停车簇,并基于这些停车簇组织城市停车骨干网络.其次,设计基于停车覆盖网络的全新数据传输算法来实现车辆间的有效数据传输.基于真实城市地图和交通数据的模拟实验结果表明,与现有的几种数据传输算法相比,PBBD能够以较低的网络传输开销和较小的传输延迟获得较高的数据传输成功率.     

Congestion Pricing with Heterogeneous Travelers: A General-Equilibrium Welfare Analysis

Traffic congestion pricing is studied using a general-equilibrium framework that incorporates public goods expenditures, an income tax, a government budget constraint, and preferences for equity. Individuals differ with respect to wages, values of travel time, and the congestion characteristics of their vehicles. Formulae for optimal tolls are derived and decomposed to reveal the separate influences of individual and vehicle heterogeneity, road network effects, fiscal effects and equity concerns. Using an example various tolling regimes are considered, defined by how much of the network is tolled, by whether and how tolls are differentiated by route, and by vehicle and individual characteristics.     

A new congestion control algorithm for improving the performance of a broadcast-based multiprocessor architecture

Congestion occurring in the input queues of broadcast-based multiprocessor architectures can severely limit their overall performance. The existing congestion control algorithms estimate congestion based on a node’s output channel parameters such as the number of free virtual channels or the number of packets waiting at the channel queue. In this paper, we have proposed a new congestion control algorithm to prevent congestion on broadcast-based multiprocessor architectures with multiple input queues. Our algorithm performs congestion control at the packet level and takes into account the next input queue number which will be accessed by the processor, which form the fundamental differences between our algorithm and the algorithms based on the idea of virtual channel congestion control. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated by OPNET Modeler with various synthetic traffic patterns on a 64-node Simultaneous Optical Multiprocessor Exchange Bus (SOME-Bus) architecture employing the message passing protocol. Performance measures such as average input waiting time, average network response time and average processor utilization have been collected before and after applying the algorithm. The results show that the proposed algorithm is able to decrease the average input waiting time by 13.99% to 20.39%, average network response time by 8.76% to 20.36% and increase average processor utilization by 1.92% to 6.63%. The performance of the algorithm is compared with that of the other congestion control algorithms and it is observed that our algorithm performs better under all traffic patterns. Also, theoretical analysis of the proposed method is carried out by using queuing networks.     

A V2I communication-based pipeline model for adaptive urban traffic light scheduling

Adaptive traffic light scheduling based on realtime traffic information processing has proven effective for urban traffic congestion management. However, fine-grained information regarding individual vehicles is difficult to acquire through traditional data collection techniques and its accuracy cannot be guaranteed because of congestion and harsh environments. In this study, we first build a pipeline model based on vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, which is a salient technique in vehicular adhoc networks. This model enables the acquisition of fine-grained and accurate traffic information in real time via message exchange between vehicles and roadside units. We then propose an intelligent traffic light scheduling method (ITLM) based on a “demand assignment” principle by considering the types and turning intentions of vehicles. In the context of this principle, a signal phase with more vehicles will be assigned a longer green time. Furthermore, a green-way traffic light scheduling method (GTLM) is investigated for special vehicles (e.g., ambulances and fire engines) in emergency scenarios. Signal states will be adjusted or maintained by the traffic light control system to keep special vehicles moving along smoothly. Comparative experiments demonstrate that the ITLM reduces average wait time by 34%–78% and average stop frequency by 12%–34% in the context of traffic management. The GTLM reduces travel time by 22%–44% and 30%–55% under two types of traffic conditions and achieves optimal performance in congested scenarios.