CONNECTED SMART MOBILITY IN CANADA: COOPERATIVE VEHICLE-SIGNAL CONTROL

乘用车和货运量的快速增长导致加拿大大部分城市道路拥堵严重，大大降低了交通服务的可靠性。根据交通分析公司Inrix的数据，蒙特利尔和多伦多分别在2017年全球最拥堵城市中排名第23和第38位。在加拿大最大的九个城市，总的直接拥堵成本，包括延误、燃料和排放成本，估计每年超过37亿加元。在美国，成本预计将从2013年的785亿美元增加到2030年的1208亿美元。因此，缓解拥堵的需要，包括城市网络升级和创新的交通服务，是一项紧迫的任务。然而，目前加拿大交通基础设施的发展和道路里程的增加跟不上交通量的增长，以解决道路拥堵问题。另一方面，最近互联汽车的发展导致了积极的交通运营，以优化城市网络的性能。发展互联汽车，实现“绿色创新交通”，也是加拿大2030年改善交通服务的战略计划。 拟议的研究计划旨在开发一种创新的互联车辆应用程序，将车辆和基础设施整合在一起，以缓解拥堵并改善交通服务。提出了四个相互关联的重点领域，以应对阻碍互联汽车应用开发和评估的关键挑战。重点领域一包括在路段和网络上开发多层车辆控制系统，以最大限度地提高运输性能。重点领域二旨在开发一个积极主动的信号控制系统，以优化信号计划。重点领域三将设计一个协同控制框架，以整合车辆和信号控制系统。重点领域四旨在建立一个实地实验，以评估拟议系统的实际效益。这项研究代表着在控制车辆和基础设施方面对互联汽车实施的独特贡献。它还将提供专门的HQP培训，以满足全球对智能交通系统发展的需求。 越来越多的出行时间延误和燃料使用，以及道路拥堵对社会经济、环境和健康的深远影响，需要向联网车辆的智能城市转变。该研究将为联网车辆环境下单车和路侧基础设施的综合控制提供直接的决策支持，以缓解道路拥堵。它还将帮助加拿大的汽车行业和各级政府提高交通服务质量，并为智慧城市的发展弥合行业和政府之间的差距。

The rapid growth of passenger cars and freight volumes has caused severe road congestion in most cities in Canada, which significantly reduced the reliability of transportation services. According to a transportation analytic firm Inrix, Montreal and Toronto were ranked as the 23rd and 38th most congested cities globally in 2017. In Canada's nine largest cities, the overall direct congestion cost, including costs of delay, fuel and emissions, was estimated to be more than CAD $3.7 billion annually. In the United States, the cost is anticipated to increase from USD $78.5 billion in 2013 to USD $120.8 billion in 2030. As such, the need of mitigating congestion, including urban network upgrade and innovative transportation services, is an urgent task. However, the current transportation infrastructure development and the increase of road miles in Canada are not keeping up with the increase of traffic volumes to address road congestion. On the other hand, the recent development of connected vehicles results in proactive traffic operations to optimize the performance of urban networks. Developing connected vehicles to realize “Green and Innovative Transportation” is also within Canada's strategic plan to improve transportation services in 2030. The proposed research program aims at developing an innovative connected vehicle application to integrate both vehicles and infrastructures to mitigate congestion and to improve transportation services. Four interrelated Focus Areas are proposed to address key challenges hindering the connected vehicle application development and evaluation. Focus Area I includes the development of a multi-layer vehicle control system on both road segments and networks to maximize transportation performance. Focus Area II aims at developing a proactive signal control system to optimize signal plans. Focus Area III will design a cooperative control framework to integrate the vehicle and signal control systems. Focus Area IV aims at constructing a field experiment to evaluate the real-world benefits of the proposed system. The research represents a unique contribution to connected vehicle implementations in terms of controlling both vehicles and infrastructures. It will also provide specialized training of HQP that is tailored to meet the global need for the development of intelligent transportation systems. The increasing travel time delay and fuel usage, and the profound socio-economic, environmental and health impacts of road congestion necessitate a paradigm shift towards smart cities with connected vehicles. The research will provide a direct decision support for the integrated control of individual vehicles and roadside infrastructures to mitigate road congestion under connected vehicle environment. It will also help automotive industries and different levels of government in Canada improve the quality of transportation services, and bridge the gap between industry and government for the development of smart cities.