Distributed Traffic Speed Control for Improving Vehicle Throughput

This article presents a real-time speed control strategy for vehicle throughput improvement on highway. Using Barron-Jensen/Frankowska (B-J/F) solution to Hamilton-Jacobi (HJ) Moskowitz function, we formulate a Convex Quadratic Optimization Problem (CQOP) solved by Quadratic Programming (QP). Unlike with previous investigation on optimal control of scalar conservation law, a distributed framework is constructed based on dual decomposition and subgradient method via networked Road Infrastructures (RIs). Instead of relying on complex RIs network for information collection, the distributed method only depends on local traffic information and iteratively approaches to feasible solutions constrained by flow consensus. For both uniform and non-uniform road conditions, the proposed distributed algorithm is verified to be able to improve the vehicle throughput, reduce traffic delay and alleviate congestion in simulation.