Hybrid Optimal Control for Time-Efficient Highway Traffic Management

This article examines the hybrid traffic control problem to minimize total travel time (TTT) of a highway network through traffic management infrastructures, including dynamic speed limit signs, ramp metering, and information board. We first build the traffic flow model based on the Moskowitz function for each highway link to predict traffic status within a control horizon. The traffic density is predicted based on the flow dynamic model and corrected periodically by the measured traffic flow data. The minimum TTT traffic control problem is then formulated as a mixed-integer quadratic programming problem with quadratic constraints. Numerical simulation of a real world highway network is provided to demonstrate a significant reduction of TTT and alleviation of traffic congestion compared to results obtained from ALINEA and PI-ALINEA methods.