PTV VISSIM simulation data for efficient eco-ramp control project funded by NCST 18-19

Our current transportation system faces a variety of issues in terms of
safety, mobility, and environmental sustainability. The emergence of
innovative intelligent transportation system (ITS) technologies such as
connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) and transportation electrification
unfold unprecedented opportunities to address aforementioned issues. In
this project, we propose a hierarchical ramp control system that
not only allows microscopic cooperative maneuvers for connected and
automated electric vehicles (CAEVs) on the ramp to merge into mainline
traffic flow under certain controlled ramp inflow rate,  but
also enables macroscopic corridor-level traffic flow control
(i.e., coordinated ramp metering rate determination). A centralized
optimal control-based approach is proposed to both smooth the merging flow
and improve the system-wide mobility of the network. Linear quadratic
trackers in both finite horizon and receding horizon forms are developed
to solve the optimization problem in terms of path planning and sequence
determination, and a microscopic electric vehicle (EV) energy consumption
model is applied to estimate the energy consumption. Finally, traffic
simulation is conducted through PTV VISSIM to evaluate the impact of the
proposed system on a highway segment. The results confirm that under the
regulated inflow rate, the proposed system can avoid potential traffic
congestion and improve mobility significantly up to 102% compared to the
conventional ramp metering and the ramp without any control approach.