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Calibration of macroscopic first-order traffic flow models for lane-free automated vehicle traffic

Mitrakas Konstantinos

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Summary

A novel traffic paradigm, called TrafficFluid, was recently proposed for automated vehicles. It is characterized by two integrated principles: lane-free traffic and vehicle nudging. The latter suggests that vehicles can be influenced (nudged) by other vehicles in their vicinity, even behind them. Various vehicle movement strategies have been designed for this concept that can be employed for microscopic traffic simulation. On the other hand, macroscopic models may be used to produce large-scale simulation results with low computational effort, but also to gain insights on the emerging macroscopic properties of lane-free traffic with vehicle nudging. Furthermore,macroscopic models can be used for various significant traffic engineering tasks, including estimation and control strategy design. This thesis employs an ad-hoc vehicle movement strategy for Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) driving in a lane-free highway environment, to produce data that can be utilized to calibrate macroscopic models. Four macroscopic models, original CTM, extended version of CTM, drivers’ anticipation model and an extended version of drivers’ anticipation model, are calibrated to fit the data, and optimal model parameters are determined for different highway widths and different vehicle nudging levels. The previously developed CALISTO software tool and its GUI are appropriately extended to handle the new models. These models include an anticipation term that influences the total outflow from a highway section according to the downstream prevailing conditions. This mechanism suggests that drivers adjust their speed, by also considering the downstream density. Moreover, in the space-discretised version, the traffic volume considered in the conservation equation is a convex combination of the total traffic volume of the current, the next and the previous sections. The traffic conditions observed in the microscopic lane-free CAV traffic have been reproduced with sufficient accuracy. Highway capacity and critical density have shown a linear increase as the highway width expands, with further increases observed when vehicle nudging is elevated. However, free speed remains unaffected by highway width and has only shown a slight increase with vehicle nudging.

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