Integrated anticipatory control [traffic control]

Traditional traffic control is in most cases local and reactive: it responds to certain past and/or current traffic conditions. In the paper integrated anticipatory control is studied. Integrated control means that the network is considered to be one network. Anticipatory control means taking not only the current, but also the future traffic conditions into account. These future traffic conditions are related to the behaviour of road users, not the short term driving behaviour, such as choice of lane or speed level, but the long term behaviour such as route choice and choice of departure time. Traffic control should be able to anticipate this behaviour. The paper shows the advantages of working together and anticipating the future traffic conditions to decrease the congestion problem. In The Netherlands a structure for cooperation is given in the Dutch National Traffic Management Architecture, which is described initially. After that the problem is described in more detail and the studied control algorithms are given. The simulation and assignment methods are formulated and the results for two examples are described. Finally, some conclusions are drawn and a perspective for further research is given.