Discrete event modeling and simulation for flow control in an automated highway system

Abstract

This paper considers a lane routing problem in an Automated Highway System (AHS). Lane routing is important because the problem of managing the traffic flow on a multilane AHS plays a major role in an urban environment. On the other hand, because analytical approaches are impossible for various, almost unpredictable traffic situations, traffic simulations are indispensible for the design and the evaluation of various control strategies of the AHS. The discrete event modeling technique can be employed to describe both macroscopic and microscopic models according to the level of abstraction. The DEVS (Discrete Event System Specification) formalism has been employed for traffic modeling and simulation of the AHS. In this paper, we propose a lane routing algorithm for vehicles entering the highway to exit successfully at their destinations while balancing the lane capacity usage of the highway (even in the face of lane-blocking incident). After that, we present a methodology for the performance evaluation of the proposed algorithm using discrete event modeling and simulation. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm gives good performance for traffic flow control in the AHS. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.