Simulation and organisation of future lane-free traffic

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Klaus Bogenberger
• Subject Area: Traffic and Transport Systems, Intelligent and Automated Traffic
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 457321189

Traffic congestion is a widespread phenomenon that significantly affects many aspects of the quality of life. Increasing road capacity by extending the road infrastructure may not always be a viable option while a more efficient use of the existing road infrastructure, using advanced traffic control strategies, can lead to a reduction in congestion, emissions, as well as to improved safety. New communication and automation technologies for vehicles and infrastructure along with new management schemes could be used to maximize the utilization of existing road capacities in both freeway and urban networks.This project puts forward an utterly original idea that leads to a novel paradigm for vehicular traffic in the era of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs). This concept questions the necessity of perhaps the most fundamental element of existing road infrastructure: lanes. While lanes are instrumental in helping the human driver and increase safety and efficiency in present-day traffic, the need for their existence can be questioned for the case of a fully connected and automated environment. Removing fixed lanes and thus being able to exploit the full width of an existing road infrastructure in a dynamic fashion would allow for completely new vehicle driving strategies and traffic management schemes to be implemented. One of these schemes is the concept of nudging, where vehicles with a higher desired speed can apply a virtual pushing force to other vehicles downstream via vehicle-to-vehicle communication technologies. The pushed vehicles would then drive aside to let the vehicle applying the virtual force pass. This nudging force can be controlled centrally based on e.g. pricing schemes or vehicle occupancies. This could increase traffic efficiency as well as the deployment of transport policies. Moreover, it would allow for an improved distribution of vehicle wheel loads across the width of the roadway surface, reducing wear and tear and therefore maintenance costs. Another possibility to improve road utilization is flocking, where vehicles with the same origin are spatio-temporally grouped, similar to platoons in lane-based traffic, but across the whole road width, allowing for an increase in the efficiency of traffic operations. In this project, we aim to develop a modelling framework which enables us to effectively design traffic management strategies and transport policies based on the novel concept of lane-free traffic. In particular, we focus on (i) developing a traffic model for lane-free traffic, (ii) implementing the developed model into a simulation framework, and (iii) developing and investigating traffic management strategies for freeway and urban networks.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants