A new targeted on-ramp control approach considering both efficiency and equity

Abstract

On-ramp control is an effective approach for alleviating traffic congestion on highways. However, there are still lacking on-ramp control approaches applicable to large regional highway networks. Here, we develop a targeted on-ramp control approach applicable to regional highway networks by taking advantage of the vehicle source information, which pinpoints the on-ramps contributing major traffic flow to the highway bottleneck. Furthermore, a combined and tunable controlling index is proposed to enhance the equity of the generated traffic control scheme. The proposed on-ramp control approach is validated on an actual large highway network using actual travel demand data. Results indicate that the proposed approach can well mitigate the traffic congestion of highway bottleneck while at the same time enhance the equity and practicability of the generated traffic control scheme.