Motorway traffic flow modelling, estimation and control with vehicle automation and communication systems.

Traffic congestion on motorways is a serious threat for the economic and social life of modern society as well as for the environment, which calls for drastic and radical solutions. Conventional traffic management measures, currently applied, are valuable, but face limitations. During the last decades, a variety of vehicle automation and communication systems (VACS) have been developed and deployed, and many more are expected to appear in the near future. These systems provide a novel basis for a new generation of traffic management, which exploits emerging vehicle automation functions and connectivity channels to enable sensible traffic flow improvements in terms of efficiency and safety. A number of innovative concepts, tools and results that open up new horizons for traffic management research and practice in presence of VACS have been produced recently in the frame of TRAMAN21, an ERC Advanced Grant. This paper presents a collection of novel problems as well as of related traffic flow modelling, estimation and control developments for motorway traffic that can be used in the evolving traffic environment with VACS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]