Methodology for Determining Critical Locations in Road Networks based on Graph Theory

Abstract Latest research in the field of fully autonomous driving led to a new control approach based on decentralized control algorithms for macroscopic traffic scenarios. This control approach balances the traffic load (density) within a road network segment of limited area to maximize the vehicle throughput and to avoid traffic jams. However, it is necessary to divide the road network into multiple individual segments of limited area in an appropriate way. Due to the lack of a methodology to locate such locations for limited areas within a road network, this work presents an adopted technique that solves this problem by modelling the road network as spatial network and by using graph centrality indices. The presented method was implemented into a software framework and validated by simulation.