1-9: Cordon-Metering Rules for Present-Day and Future Cities

Simulation experiments are expected to unveil a set of rules for drawing a cordon around a city’s congested neighborhood, so that traffic signals can be used to meter neighborhood inflows more effectively during the morning rush. Rules on when to initiate cordon metering given real-time measurements of neighborhood traffic will also be determined through simulation. Cities and metropolitan regions will be abstracted in ways that make the simulations of many scenarios feasible, while preserving the physical realism needed for crafting reliable rules. Preliminary research suggests that the rules can be both simple and general. This would mean that cordon metering could be deployed in most any city, without need for specialized analyses and customized designs to suit a city’s peculiarities. We will further show how our metering plan can be deployed in present-day cities with far less technology investment and technical know-how than previously supposed. We will also explore whether our simple and generic plan can be enhanced by synchronizing traffic signals inside the cordon in special ways. The research will also demonstrate how cordon metering can be enhanced for cities of the future by leveraging the opportunities promised by connected automated vehicles (CAVs). The CAV technology enables individual vehicles to be controlled precisely following prescribed trajectories or speed guidance sent from traffic management centers (TMCs). The proposed control strategies will be communicated with transportation stakeholders to discuss the feasibility of the implementation integrating existing intelligent transportation systems (e.g., sensors, ramp metering, adaptive signal and lane control, and hard shoulder running).