A recently proposed paradigm for vehicular traffic in the era of CAV (connected and automated vehicles), called TrafficFluid, involves lane-free vehicle movement. Lane-free traffic implies that incremental road widening (narrowing) leads to corresponding incremental increase (decrease) of capacity; and this opens the way for consideration of real-time internal boundary control on highways and arterials, in order to flexibly share the total (both directions) road width and capacity among the two directions in dependence of the bi-directional demand and traffic conditions, so as to maximize the total (two directions) flow efficiency. The problem is formulated as a convex QP (Quadratic Programming) problem that may be solved efficiently, and representative case studies shed light on and demonstrate the features, capabilities and potential of the novel control action.
@article{arxiv.2008.10255,
title = {Optimal internal boundary control of lane-free automated vehicle traffic},
author = {Milad Malekzadeh and Ioannis Papamichail and Markos Papageorgiou and Klaus Bogenberger},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2008.10255},
year = {2021}
}