The outbreak of COVID-19 disrupted our everyday life. Many local authorities enforced a cordon sanitaire for the protection of sensitive areas. Travellers can only pass the cordon after tested. This paper aims to propose a method to design an on-ramp control scheme to maximise urban freeway network throughput with a predetermined queuing delay constraint at all off-ramps around cordon sanitaire. A bi-level programming model is formulated where the lower-level is a transportation system equilibrium to predict traffic flow, and the upper-level is onramp metering optimisation that is nonlinear programming. A stochastic queuing model is used to represent the waiting phenomenon at each off-ramp where testing is conducted, and a heuristic algorithm is designed to solve the proposed bi-level model where a method of successive averages (MSA) is adopted for the lower-level model; A genetic algorithm (GA) with elite strategy is adopted for the upper-level model. An experimental study is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method and algorithm. The results show that the methods can find a good heuristic optimal solution. These methods are useful for freeway operators to determine the optimal on-ramp control for disease control and prevention.
Quilty BJ, et al. The effect of travel restrictions on the geographical spread of COVID‑19 between large cities in China: A modelling study. BMC Medicine. 2020;18(1): 259. doi: 10.1101/2020.02.09.20021261.
Gostin LO, Wiley LF. Governmental public health powers during the COVID‑19 pandemic: Stay‑at‑home orders, business closures, and travel restrictions. JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association. 2020;323(21): 2137-8. doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.5460.
Pan A, et al. Association of public health interventions with the epidemiology of the COVID‑19 outbreak in Wuhan, China. JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association. 2020;323(19): 1915-23. doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.6130.
Yang H, Yagar S. Traffic assignment and traffic control in general freeway‑arterial corridor systems. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological. 1994;28(6): 463-86. doi: 10.1016/0191-2615(94)90015-9.
Yang H, Yagar S. Traffic assignment and signal control in saturated road networks. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice. 1995;29(2): 125-39. doi: 10.1016/0965-8564(94)E0007-V.
Yang H, Lam WHK. Optimal road tolls under conditions of queueing and congestion. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice. 1996;30(5 PART A): 319-32. doi: 10.1016/0965-8564(96)00003-1.
Yang H, Bell MGH. Traffic restraint, road pricing and network equilibrium. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological. 1997;31(4): 303-14. doi: 10.1016/S0191-2615(96)00030-6.
Vickrey WS. Congestion theory and transport investment. The American Economic Review. 1969;59(2): 251-60. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1823678 [Accessed 27th Apr. 2021].
Li Z-C, Huang H-J, Yang H. Fifty years of the bottleneck model: A bibliometric review and future research directions. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological. 2020;139: 311-42. doi: 10.1016/j.trb.2020.06.009.
Sheffi Y. Urban transportation networks. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall; 1985.
Oppenheim N. Urban travel demand modeling: from individual choices to general equilibrium. New York: John Wiley and Sons; 1995.
Boyce DE, Zhang Y‑F, Lupa MR. Introducing "feed‑back" into four‑step travel forecasting procedure versus equilibrium solution of combined model. Transportation Research Record. 1994;1443: 65-74. http://worldcat.org/isbn/0309055245 [Accessed 27th Apr. 2021].
Boyce D, Zhang Y‑F. Calibrating combined model of trip distribution, modal split, and traffic assignment. Transportation Research Record. 1997;1607: 1-5. doi: 10.3141/1607-01.
Lin H. An accessibility-oriented optimal control method for land use development. Journal of Urban Planning and Development. 2019;145(4): 04019011. doi: 10.1061/(ASCE)UP.1943-5444.0000518.
Lin H-Z, Wei J. Optimal transport network design for both traffic safety and risk equity considerations. Journal of Cleaner Production. 2019;218: 738-45. doi: 10.1177/0037549720920374.
Gartner NH, Messer CJ, Rathi A. Revised Monograph on Traffic Flow Theory. Federal Highway Administration, United States; 1999.
Yang H, et al. An algorithm for the inflow control problem on urban freeway networks with user‑optimal flows. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological. 1994;28(2): 123-39. doi: 10.1016/0191-2615(94)90021-3.
Shepherd S, Sumalee A. A genetic algorithm based approach to optimal toll level and location problems. Networks and Spatial Economics. 2004;4(2): 161-79. doi: 10.1023/B:NETS.0000027771.13826.3a.
Sumalee A. Optimal road user charging cordon design: A heuristic optimization approach. Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering. 2004;19(5): 377-92. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8667.2004.00364.x.
Sumalee A. Multi-concentric optimal charging cordon design. Transportmetrica. 2007;3(1): 41-71. doi: 10.1080/18128600708685667.
Liu Z, Meng Q, Wang S. Speed‑based toll design for cordon‑based congestion pricing scheme. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies. 2013;31: 83-98. doi: 10.1016/j.trc.2013.02.012.
Guest Editor: Eleonora Papadimitriou, PhD
Editors: Dario Babić, PhD; Marko Matulin, PhD; Marko Ševrović, PhD.
Accelerating Discoveries in Traffic Science |
2024 © Promet - Traffic&Transportation journal