Eco-Driving Algorithm with a Moving Bottleneck on a Single-Lane Road

Abstract

Eco-driving strategies have been applied to smooth traffic flow and reduce greenhouse gas emissions along with air pollution. In this paper, we propose an eco-driving strategy to reduce traffic oscillation and smooth trajectories for connected vehicles following a moving bottleneck on a single-lane road. The eco-driving strategy, which leverages vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications, designs advisory speed limits for each following vehicle through a control algorithm. The algorithm is based on the prediction of the following vehicle trajectories dictated by a moving bottleneck. The following vehicle trajectories are obtained by analytically solving the moving bottleneck problem in which the moving bottleneck speeds vary over time. In addition, the bounded acceleration rate is imposed in car-following behavior. The benefits of this strategy are demonstrated by applying it to four scenarios with different bottleneck movements. By simulating the scenarios with Newell’s car-following model with bounded acceleration and VT-Micro emission model, we find that both speed fluctuations and emissions are reduced with the algorithm in the scenarios in which the moving bottleneck has a constant speed, accelerates, decelerates and stops-and-goes. The results indicate that the proposed eco-driving algorithm can smooth traffic flow behind a moving bottleneck.