Opportunistic solution-space reduction techniques for reducing the time complexity of Dynamic Speed Control with microsimulation on motorways

Dynamic Speed Control (DSC) on motorways can be enhanced by using models with higher granularity for capturing the evolution of traffic flow. Nonetheless, the required number of micro-simulation runs for reaching an optimal DSC solution and their computational complexity hinder the use of micro-level models for DSC on large-scale motorways. The present study introduces a set of techniques that reduce the number of required micro-simulations, thus improving the computational cost. The proposed techniques: 1) split the motorway into stretches; 2) introduce an approach based on genetic algorithms to reduce the number of micro-simulations; 3) exclude, when possible, VMS combinations by applying solution approximation methods instead of micro-simulation. The method is evaluated through a number of test scenarios in a stretch of motorway A6 in the Netherlands.