Modelling Monitoring The Performance Of Urban Traffic Control Systems

This book introduces the concepts of mobility data and data-driven urban traffic monitoring. A typical framework of mobility data-based urban traffic monitoring is also presented, and it describes the processes of mobility data collection, data processing, traffic modelling, and some practical issues of applying the models for urban traffic monitoring. This book presents three novel mobility data-driven urban traffic monitoring approaches. First, to attack the challenge of mobility data sparsity, the authors propose a compressive sensing-based urban traffic monitoring approach. This solution mines the traffic correlation at the road network scale and exploits the compressive sensing theory to recover traffic conditions of the whole road network from sparse traffic samplings. Second, the authors have compared the traffic estimation performances between linear and nonlinear traffic correlation models and proposed a dynamical non-linear traffic correlation modelling-based urban traffic monitoring approach. To address the challenge of involved huge computation overheads, the approach adapts the traffic modelling and estimations tasks to Apache Spark, a popular parallel computing framework. Third, in addition to mobility data collected by the public transit systems, the authors present a crowdsensing-based urban traffic monitoring approach. The proposal exploits the lightweight mobility data collected from participatory bus riders to recover traffic statuses through careful data processing and analysis. Last but not the least, the book points out some future research directions, which can further improve the accuracy and efficiency of mobility data-driven urban traffic monitoring at large scale. This book targets researchers, computer scientists, and engineers, who are interested in the research areas of intelligent transportation systems (ITS), urban computing, big data analytic, and Internet of Things (IoT). Advanced level students studying these topics benefit from this book as well.

This monograph provides an extended overview of modelling and control approaches for freeway traffic systems, moving from the early methods to the most recent scientific results and field implementations. The concepts of green traffic systems and smart mobility are addressed in the book, since a modern freeway traffic management system should be designed to be sustainable. Future perspectives on freeway traffic control are also analysed and discussed with reference to the most recent technological advancements The most widespread modelling and control techniques for freeway traffic systems are treated with mathematical rigour, but also discussed with reference to their performance assessment and to the expected impact of their practical usage in real traffic systems. In order to make the book accessible to readers of different backgrounds, some fundamental aspects of traffic theory as well as some basic control concepts, useful for better understanding the addressed topics, are provided in the book. This monograph can be used as a textbook for courses on transport engineering, traffic management and control. It is also addressed to experts working in traffic monitoring and control areas and to researchers, technicians and practitioners of both transportation and control engineering. The authors’ systematic vision of traffic modelling and control methods developed over decades makes the book a valuable survey resource for freeway traffic managers, freeway stakeholders and transportation public authorities with professional interests in freeway traffic systems. Advances in Industrial Control reports and encourages the transfer of technology in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology has an impact on all areas of the control discipline. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of new work in all aspects of industrial control.

The problems of urban traffic in the industrially developed countries have been at the top of the priority list for a long time. While making a critical contribution to the economic well being of those countries, transportation systems in general and highway traffic in particular, also have detrimental effects which are evident in excessive congestion, high rates of accidents and severe pollution problems. Scientists from different disciplines have played an important role in the development and refinement of the tools needed for the planning, analysis, and control of urban traffic networks. In the past several years, there were particularly rapid advances in two areas that affect urban traffic: 1. Modeling of traffic flows in urban networks and the prediction of the resulting equilibrium conditions; 2. Technology for communication with the driver and the ability to guide him, by providing him with useful, relevant and updated information, to his desired destination.

This book is a collection of selected papers from the 2011 International Conference on Communications, Electronics and Automation Engineering hold in Xi’an, China, August 23-25, 2012. It presents some of the latest research findings in a broad range of interdisciplinary fields related to communications, electronics and automation engineering. Specific emphasis is placed on the following topics: automation control, data mining and statistics, simulation and mathematical modeling, human factors and cognitive engineering, web technology, optimization and algorithm, and network communications. The prime objective of the book is to familiarize the readers with cutting edge developments in the research of electronics and automation engineering with a variety of applications. Hopefully, the book can help researchers to identify research trends in many areas, to learn the new methods and tools, and to spark innovative ideas.