Issues in Acquisition, Processing and Use of Information to Enhance the Performance of Transportation Systems

该奖项是在交通行业工程探索性研究（ETI）计划征集下颁发的。信息采集和处理是所有智能交通系统技术的核心。 技术进步继续促进各种数据的获取。 然而，为了实现为运输系统配备感测、致动、数据采集和通信系统的潜在益处，提供关于要采集的信息以及必须如何处理和利用所采集的信息以使运输系统具有实时决策能力的指导方针的方法，本建议的重点是工程交通流行为的合成控制行动的组成车辆;我们把车辆看作是信息的感知、提供和执行装置。2在这项研究中，我们寻求以下问题的答案。 在基本层面，我们将探讨： 1. 运输系统的性能特点是什么？ 哪些信息对改善交通系统的性能是相关和有用的？ 其中，以目前的技术状况，哪些是可行的？ 可以开发什么样的技术？ 2. 必须开发哪些工具来分析运输系统的性能？在应用层面，我们有兴趣确定以下问题的答案： 1. 如何确定运输系统中信息获取、处理和利用对其性能的影响？ 2. 给定运输系统的宏观性能规格，如何设计一个运输系统，以实现给定的性能规格？我们将开发工具来模拟交通流行为，检查其稳定性，并开发强大的自适应交通流控制策略，以补偿因道路和天气条件以及车辆的知情微观行为的影响而引起的交通流行为的任何变化。 预计这项研究将为下一代车辆和交通控制系统所需的基础设施，通信和信息处理能力提供指导方针。

This award is being made under the Exploratory Research on Engineering the Transport Industries (ETI) program solicitation.Information acquisition and processing is central to all Intelligent Transportation System technologies. Technological advances continue to facilitate the acquisition of a wide variety of data. However, in order to realize the potential benefits of equpping the transportation systems with sensing, actuation, data acquisition and communication systems, methodologies that provide guidelines, on the information to be acquired and how the acquired information must be processed and utilised to empower the transportation system with real-time decision making capability, are required and are currently lacking.The focus of this proposal is on engineering traffic flow behavior from the synthesis of control actions for constituent vehicles; we view vehicles as information sensing, purveying and actuating devices.In this study, we seek answers to the following questions. At the fundamental level, we would enquire into: 1. What characterizes the performance of a transportation system? What information is relevant and useful to improve the performance of a transportation system? Of these, what is feasible with the current state of technology? What kind of technologies can be developed? 2. What tools must be developed for the analysis of performance of the transportation system?At the applied level, we are interested in determining answers to the following questions: 1. How does one determine the effect of information acquisition, processing and utilization in the transportation system on its performance? 2. Given macroscopic performance specifications of the transportation system, how does one engineer a transportation system that achieves the given performance specification?We will develop tools to model traffic flow behavior, examine their stability and develop robust adaptive traffic flow control strategies to compensate for any changes in traffic flow behavior arising from road and weather conditions and from the effects of informed microscopic actions of the vehicles. It is expected that this research will provide guidelines on required infrastructure, communication and information processing capabilities for the next generation of vehicular and traffic control sytems.