Seminar Series
CEE Graduate Seminars 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
D221 Thornton Hall 2:00 PM
Traffic Signal Control with Connected Vehicles
Noah J. Goodall
Abstract
Modern vehicles are equipped with many electronic sensor which monitor a vehicle’s speed, lateral and longitudinal acceleration, and vehicle position and heading. Although the technology exists to do so, vehicles rarely communicate this information wirelessly to other vehicles or roadside infrastructure. Researchers are anticipating the deployment of wireless vehicle communication, and have begun developing applications that use this new technology to improve safety and reduce congestion. This system is known as connected vehicles.
Traffic signal control is one area that can greatly benefit from real-time vehicle location data. Traffic signals today rely on historical traffic counts to create timing plans. In-pavement loop detectors and video detection are sometimes used to make small adjustments to timing plans, but are too inaccurate, expensive, unreliable, and limited in physical range too provide the level of detection needed to fully adapt to traffic in real time. New traffic control logic is proposed here, which uses new data made available by connected vehicles (i.e. precise vehicle locations, headings, and speeds) to minimize the vehicle delay and adapt instantly to changing conditions.
The rollout of connected vehicles is expected to take 30 years between kickoff and a 90% participation rate. For many years, only a few vehicles will be able to communicate wirelessly, severely limiting the effectiveness of any application. Another algorithm is proposed here that attempts to microscopically estimate the positions and speeds of those vehicles that are not equipped to communicate wirelessly. Their locations will be estimated based on the behavior of equipped vehicles, specifically when equipped vehicles behave differently than expected based on accepted models of normal driver behavior. This algorithm is expected to improve the performance of many applications that require individual vehicle locations.
Biography
Noah Goodall received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Civil & Environmental Engineering from the University of Virginia. He worked as an engineering consultant in the Washington, D.C. area for four years focusing on intelligent transportation systems. Mr. Goodall is currently a research scientist with the Virginia Center for Transportation Innovation and Research. He is also a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Virginia studying transportation.
The Civil Engineering seminar series is open to the University community.
Civil Engineering undergraduate students are especially invited to attend.