• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.73-80
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• 2008

ALINEA algorithm, which is one of the best on-ramp metering algorithms, was designed to control the traffic volume from on-ramp in order to maintain the optimal occupancy rate of the detectors installed downstream of the merge area. But, the reliability of occupancy rate estimated from the loop detectors, which are used most commonly in Korea, is relatively lower than other parameters such as speed and volume. Moreover, because occupancy rate depends on the length of loop detectors and site, lots of calibration work is required whenever they are installed in order to estimate the occupancy rate. Therefore, there exists room for improvement of ALINEA algorithm because only occupancy rate having some problems is considered as a control parameter in ALINEA algorithm. Practically it is difficult to measure or perceive the occupancy rate for traffic engineers and drivers. On the other hand, speed can be good alternative which can overcome the defect induced by using occupancy. In this study, occupancy based ALINEA algorithm is converted to speed based ALINEA assuming the linear relationship between density and speed.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.9-21
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• 2011

The ramp metering strategy is one of the effective ways to solve the freeway traffic congestion in peak time periods. The study was initiated with assurance that the traffic conditions of ramp and mainline that mitigate the congestion would exist. Under the moderate traffic volume levels, ramp metering is expected to improve the quality of freeway operation. To derive a range of traffic condition, three operation strategies(Do nothing, ramp metering, minimum ramp control) were set up and the ALINEA algorithm was implemented with microscopic traffic simulator "VISSIM". The volumes of mainline and ramp are key parameters for the simulation scenarios. Measures of effectiveness for the study include mainline density and average vehicle speed. Operation boundaries in terms of traffic volume were proposed for operating ramp metering strategy. The results show that under the proposed traffic conditions the ramp metering was more successful to increase average vehicle speeds. Traffic controls under the operation boundaries of traffic levels give significant effects for density and average vehicle speed. The outcomes of this study would be useful to improve the performance of ramp metering strategies.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.65 no.12
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• pp.2046-2052
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• 2016

Ramp metering is one of the most efficient and widely used control methods for an intelligent transportation management system on a freeway. Its objective is to control and upgrade freeway traffic by regulating the number of vehicles entering the freeway entrance ramp, in such a way that not only the alleviation of the congestion but also the smoothing of the traffic flow around the desired density level can be achieved for the maintenance of the maximum mainline throughput. When the cycle of the signal detection is larger than that of the system process, the density tracking problem needs to be considered in the form of the discrete-time system. Therefore, a discrete-time sliding mode control method is proposed for the ramp metering problem in the presence of both input constraint in the on-ramp and exogenous disturbance in the off-ramp considering the random behavior of the driver. Simulations were performed using a validated second-order macroscopic traffic flow model in Matlab environment and the simulation results indicate that proposed control method can achieve better performance than previously well-known ALINEA strategy in the sense that mainstream flow throughput is maximized and congestion is alleviated even in the presence of input constraint and exogenous disturbance.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.2031-2042
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• 2017

In this paper, a novel traffic flow control method based-on ramp metering and speed regulation using an adaptive sliding mode control (ASMC) method along with a deadzoned parameter adaptation law is proposed at a stochastic macroscopic level traffic environment, where the influence of the density and speed disturbances is accounted for in the traffic dynamic equations. The goal of this paper is to design a local traffic flow controller using both ramp metering and speed regulation based on ASMC, in order to achieve the desired density and speed for the maintenance of the maximum mainline throughput against disturbances in practice. The proposed method is advantageous in that it can improve the traffic flow performance compared to the traditional methods using only ramp metering, even in the presence of ramp storage limitation and disturbances. Moreover, a prior knowledge of disturbance magnitude is not required in the process of designing the controller unlike the conventional sliding mode controller. A stability analysis is presented to show that the traffic system under the proposed traffic flow control method is guaranteed to be uniformly bounded and its ultimate bound can be adjusted to be sufficiently small in terms of deadzone. The validity of the proposed method is demonstrated under different traffic situations (i.e., different initial traffic status), in the sense that the proposed control method is capable of stabilizing traffic flow better than the previously well-known Asservissement Lineaire d'Entree Autoroutiere (ALINEA) strategy and also feedback linearization control (FLC) method.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2015

This study aims to develop a mainline metering strategy considering queue imbalance among lanes that can reduce congestion at a toll plaza section by managing queue caused by mainline metering. The suggested strategy considers simultaneously optimizing the number of cars in merging area and managing queue by lane. This study analyzes the effectiveness of the strategy with respect to the average travel time and the occurrence rate of spillback using the PARAMICS. The results show that the suggested strategy has an effect on reducing congestion and improving operation efficiency at toll plaza. In particular, the congestion become more intensified when the length of waiting space is shorter; however, this study shows that the suggested strategy can relieve the congestion in that condition.