A Novel Control-Oriented Cell Transmission Model Including Service Stations on Highways

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new control-oriented traffic model that incorporates service stations on highways, allowing for better analysis and control of congestion influenced by vehicle stops at stations.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel extension of the classical Cell Transmission Model that includes service station dynamics, enabling more accurate traffic management strategies.

Findings

Model effectively captures the impact of service stations on traffic flow.

Control strategies can be integrated with the new model to reduce congestion.

Simulations show benefits of service stations during short congestion periods.

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel model that describes how the traffic evolution on a highway stretch is affected by the presence of a service station. The presented model enhances the classical CTM dynamics by adding the dynamics associated with the service stations, where the vehicles may stop before merging back into the mainstream. We name it CTMs. We discuss its flexibility in describing different complex scenarios where multiple stations are characterized by different drivers' average stopping times corresponding to different services. The model has been developed to help design control strategies aimed at decreasing traffic congestion. Thus, we discuss how classical control schemes can interact with the proposed \gls{CTMs}. Finally, we validate the proposed model through numerical simulations and assess the effects of service stations on traffic evolution, which appear to be beneficial, especially for relatively short congested periods.