Intelligent Weather-Responsive Traffic Management

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Canada's harsh winter climate can cause significant impacts on all aspects of Canadians' life (e.g., increased accident risk and anxiety and reduced reliability of travel and emergency services) and the nation's economy (e.g., reduced productivity and unfulfilled economic activities). The goal of the proposed research program is to address several key issues related to winter transportation, including driver behaviour, condition monitoring, estimation and prediction, and traffic management. My research focuses particularly on developing models and tools for improving the decision-making of transportation agencies and road users. The proposed research program consists of three research themes as follows: 1) Traveler behaviour under winter weather conditions: The objective is to develop quantitative understanding of how travelers respond to adverse winter weather and road conditions at both macroscopic (e.g., trip-making, mode and route choice) and microscopic levels (e.g., car-following and gap acceptance), which is fundamental for intelligent system planning and traffic management; 2) Estimation and prediction of road and traffic conditions: The focus of this theme is on investigating both fixed and mobile data sources for generating reliable road surface and traffic condition information that is needed by maintenance operators, travelers, and traffic managers, and 3) Weather responsive traffic management: The main objective is to develop traffic control models and algorithms that are responsive to road weather and traffic variation for both freeways and signalized urban streets. The research will focus specifically on how to apply the results from the previous two research themes to account for the inherent stochastic nature of various system components such as weather, road environment and traffic conditions, and drivers, and to solve practical traffic control problems using some of the latest optimization techniques. The proposed program entails both basic and applied research components with high potential for generating significant economic, environmental and technical benefits for Canada. It is also eminently suitable for training highly qualified personnel.