Urban traffic Eco-Driving: A macroscopic steady-state analysis

The problem of traveling at maximum energy efficiency (Eco-Driving) is addressed for urban traffic networks at macroscopic level. The scope of this paper is the analysis of the steady-state behavior of the system, given certain boundary flows conditions fixed by traffic lights timings, and in presence of a traffic control policy based on variable speed limits. The formal study is carried out on a two-cells variable length model adapted to the urban setup from previous works on highway traffic [1][2]. Informative traffic metrics, aimed at assessing traffic and vehicles performance in terms of traveling time, infrastructure utilization and energy consumption, are then defined and adapted to the new macroscopic traffic model. If congestion in a road section does not spill back or vanish, the system is stable and many different equilibrium points can be reached via variable speed limits. Efficient operation points and traffic conditions are identified as a trade-off between optimization of global traffic energy consumption, traveling time and infrastructure utilization.