CAREER: Multi-Scale Models of Urban Congestion Dynamics to Support Advanced Congestion Management Strategies

减少城市交通拥堵，提高整个交通系统的效率和可靠性，支持国家经济、环境和社会福利的改善。该学院早期职业发展计划(Career)奖项的目标是：1)调查局部(例如，单个交叉口或道路)和区域(例如，全市)空间尺度上的拥堵动态之间存在的关系；以及，2)利用这一知识确定能够同时在单个交叉口、沿走廊和整个区域有效应对城市交通拥堵的策略。本地和区域拥堵动态之间的关系将被整合到一个新的多尺度拥堵建模框架中，以优化和完善当前的交通控制政策，并支持先进的拥堵管理策略的开发，这些策略将随着互联和自动化车辆集成到城市环境中而变得可用。建议的研究将与一系列教育活动相结合，以增进我们在交通管理方面的知识，促进国家繁荣和福祉。具体的教育活动包括与当地交通机构合作，后者将提供数据以验证已确定的关系，支持基于真实世界的项目学习活动，并展示对交通拥堵的整体、多尺度观点。这些活动将通过建立一个关于交通操作的本科生课程材料的电子资料库来分享。PI还将开发互动的在线模拟，以演示本地和区域拥堵动态之间的关系，并将这些整合到针对当地女中学生的STEM外展讲习班中，名为“拓展青年视野”。这项研究将把区域拥塞动力学的新模型--网络宏观基础图(MFD)--与现有的基于链路的建模范例相结合，该模型与网络生产率和网络积累有关。这两种不同的方法将通过识别和量化本地和区域网络属性之间的相互依赖关系以及沿每个空间尺度的拥塞动态来结合。将开发理论和方法来揭示网络特征和局部拥堵模式，这有利于现实城市交通网络存在可重复和可预测的区域拥堵模型。这包括确定用于表征由分层街道组成并服务于不同交通流的网络的区域交通网络性能所需的构建块。从这些不同的网络结构中获得的见解也将作为研究和设计更复杂系统的基础，特别是具有多种独特和相互作用的车辆类别的多式联运交通网络。将这种地区性MFD方法与现有的基于链路的建模范例相结合，将提供一个框架，以促进自动化交通控制政策，以协调区域和本地的交通性能。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Reducing urban traffic congestion improves overall transportation system efficiency and reliability in support of improving the nation's economy, the environment and the societal welfare. The objectives of this Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award are to: 1) investigate relationships that exist between congestion dynamics at the local (e.g., individual intersections or roadways) and regional (e.g., city-wide) spatial scales; and, 2) use this knowledge to identify strategies that can effectively combat urban traffic congestion at individual intersections, along corridors and across entire regions simultaneously. The relationships between local and regional congestion dynamics will be integrated into a novel multi-scale congestion modeling framework for optimizing and refining contemporary traffic control policies as well as supporting the development of advanced congestion management strategies that will become available as connected and automated vehicles are integrated into urban environments. The proposed research will be integrated with a set of educational activities to advance our knowledge in traffic management and promote national prosperity and welfare. Specific education activities include collaboration with local transportation agencies who will provide data to verify the identified relationships and support real-world project-based learning activities and demonstrate a holistic, multi-scale view of traffic congestion. These activities will be shared through the creation of an electronic repository of undergraduate course materials on traffic operations. The PI will also develop interactive, online simulations to demonstrate the relationships between local and regional congestion dynamics and integrate these into "Expanding Youth Horizons" STEM outreach workshops targeted to local female middle school students. This research will integrate novel models of regional congestion dynamics that relate network productivity and accumulation--the network Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram (MFD)--with existing link-based modeling paradigms. These two disparate approaches will be combined by identifying and quantifying interdependencies between local and regional network properties and congestion dynamics along each of these spatial scales. Theories and methodologies will be developed to unveil network characteristics and local congestion patterns that are conducive to the existence of reproducible and predictable regional congestion models for realistic urban traffic networks. This includes the identification of the building blocks necessary to characterize regional traffic network performance for networks made up of hierarchical streets and that serve heterogeneous traffic streams. Insights obtained for these heterogeneous network structures will also serve as the basis to study and design more sophisticated systems, particularly multimodal traffic networks with multiple unique and interacting vehicle classes. Integration of this regional MFD approach with existing link-based modeling paradigms will provide a framework that facilitates automated traffic control policies to coordinate regional and local traffic performance.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.