Impact of Adaptive Cruise Control on the Formation of Self-organized Traffic Jams on Highways
Open Access
- Author:
- Jerath, Kshitij
- Graduate Program:
- Mechanical Engineering
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- None
- Committee Members:
- Sean N Brennan, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Sean N Brennan, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor - Keywords:
- traffic jams
traffic
self-organized
self organization
adaptive cruise control
congestion
multi-agent systems - Abstract:
- This thesis describes the analysis of a potential control mechanism for self-organizing systems by studying the specific problem of self-organizing traffic jams. Self-organizing traffic jams are known to occur in medium-to-high density traffic flows. Various techniques for modeling traffic flow are discussed and their advantages and limitations are considered. The master equation approach is selected for developing a model that describes the self-organizing behavior of traffic flow at a mesoscopic scale. The master equation approach is further developed to incorporate driver (or agent) behavior. Control of the self-organizing system is presented via introduction of similar agents with slightly varying interaction properties. The introduction of such agents into a self-organizing system is considered to be analogous to the introduction of vehicles with adaptive cruise control (ACC) into traffic flow. The behavior for both human-driven and ACC vehicles is modeled using the same driver model but with slightly different model parameters. It is found that introduction of a small percentage of agents with slightly different interaction behavior has the potential to affect the dynamics of the self-organizing system. Specifically, it is found that while introduction of ACC vehicles into traffic may enable higher traffic flows, it also results in disproportionately higher susceptibility of the traffic flow to congestion.