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

减少城市交通拥堵可以提高整体交通系统的效率和可靠性，从而改善国家的经济、环境和社会福利。这个教师早期职业发展计划（CAREER）奖项的目标是：1）调查当地拥堵动态之间存在的关系（例如，单独的交叉口或道路）和区域（例如，城市范围）的空间尺度;以及2）使用这些知识来确定可以同时有效地对抗单个交叉口、沿着走廊和整个区域的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，以优化和完善当代交通控制政策，并支持先进的拥堵管理策略的开发，这些策略将随着联网和自动驾驶汽车融入城市环境而变得可用。拟议的研究将与一系列教育活动相结合，以提高我们在交通管理方面的知识，促进国家繁荣和福利。具体的教育活动包括与当地交通机构合作，他们将提供数据来验证所确定的关系，并支持基于现实世界项目的学习活动，并展示交通拥堵的整体，多尺度视图。这些活动将通过建立一个关于交通业务的本科课程材料电子储存库来分享。PI还将开发交互式在线模拟，以展示当地和区域拥堵动态之间的关系，并将其纳入针对当地女中学生的“扩大青年视野”STEM外展研讨会。这项研究将整合新的模型，区域拥堵动态网络生产力和积累-网络宏观基本图（MFD）-与现有的基于链接的建模范式。这两种不同的方法将结合起来，通过识别和量化的相互依赖关系的本地和区域网络属性和拥塞动态沿着这些空间尺度。理论和方法将被开发，以揭示网络特性和局部拥堵模式，有利于现实的城市交通网络的可复制和可预测的区域拥堵模型的存在。这包括识别必要的积木，以表征区域交通网络的性能，由分层的街道组成的网络，服务于异构的交通流。对这些异构网络结构的了解也将作为研究和设计更复杂系统的基础，特别是具有多个独特和相互作用的车辆类别的多模式交通网络。该区域MFD方法与现有的基于链路的建模范例的集成将提供一个框架，促进自动化交通控制政策，以协调区域和当地的交通性能。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

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.