PRE2018 4 Group6

Group members

Name	Student ID	Department
Tom Vredenbregt	1221775	Applied Physics
Jur Kappé	1252895	Applied Physics
Jannes van Poppelen	1238120	Applied Physics
Yannick de Jong	1250663	Applied Physics
Thom Smits	1227659	Applied Physics

Organizational Matters

Minutes

Throughout the course the group will have official meetings. A summary (minute) of what has been said/achieved in every meeting will be made. These summaries can be found here.

Agendas

Like the minutes, the agendas made by the chair will be published. The agendas for the meetings can be found here.

Problem statement

The implementation of smart traffic lights in big cities reduces the travel time substantially. Whilst this makes the traffic flow more efficiently in the cities, a different solution has to be found to improve the traffic flow on highways. The ever increasing amount of traffic jams during the peak hours in the Netherlands(https://www.anwb.nl/verkeer/nieuws/nederland/2019/april/lichte-filegroei-in-eerste-kwartaal) is a call to arms to find solutions to this time-consuming phenomenon known as traffic congestion. One of these solutions is the routing of navigation systems that changes based on the activity on the highways. Traffic jams would be avoided by rerouting the navigation to go around the traffic jams, should it be the faster alternative. Of course, this solution is one of many, and it will contribute minimally on its own to the general problem. A different potential solution could be to simply add more lanes to each highway. Not only would this be very excessive outside of the peak hours, but it also would not be very cost- nor time efficient. For this reason, we propose to look for a solution in which we would optimize and change the current highways to a state in which it can, in fact, improve traffic flow in general. This solution we are proposing is the so-called "smart road". These lanes will adapt dynamically to the activity of both sides of the highway, as will be clarified visually later on. During morning peak hours, lanes highways towards big cities are usually very busy, whereas the lanes on the opposite side aren't that busy at all. Being able to distribute the lanes such that both sides would have a sufficient amount of lanes would benefit the traffic flow. The opposite directions would apply for evening peak hours. This solution would not only improve the traffic flow on highways during peak hours, but it would serve as a basis for the traffic flow outside of the peak hours. Coincidentally, this would also substantially reduce the emission that cars produce in traffic jams by continuously stopping and driving off. Central to this problem would be to research the question: Is the introduction of "smart roads" on the Dutch highways a viable solution to traffic congestion on Dutch highways?

Approach

Producing an actual prototype for a smart road in 8 weeks seems rather unlikely. Instead, the problem will be tackled by literature analysis, as well as a simulation of a smart road using a mathematically developed model. The final product for the project would, therefore, be a combination of a report about the literature analysis, together with the analyzed simulation of the smart road.

The literature analysis will include the USE aspects of the selected problem and an analysis of the present state of smart roads. In-depth analyses for user, society and enterprise stakeholders will be made. Since smart roads are designed to accommodate the users' needs, the focus will be on the user, its needs, and how to satisfy them.

The simulation of the smart road will be constructed using a mathematical model. Central in this mathematical model is a constructed norm which determines the orientation of the smart road. This norm is based on lane occupation on each side of the highway, as well as the time of the day to account for the peak hours. Whenever this norm is exceeded, the smart road will change in such a way that this norm is no longer exceeded. There is a couple of things that need to be accounted for in the simulation. One of which is the possibility of accidentally ending up on the wrong side of the highway as a result of the smart road adapting to its surroundings.

State-of-the-Art (Literature Study)

Evaluation of a movable barrier concrete system

• This report reviews the cost, safety, and effectiveness of a movable barrier system used on highways. This system is not used for our specific use case (creating a flexible and reconfigurable road) but is used for road maintenance. The report analyses specific traffic accidents involving this system, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of the system overall. Eventually, the report states that the system performs adequately in the use case as described in the report.

Moveable Barrier Solves Work-Zone Dilemma

• This article describes a movable barrier system used temporarily during the renovation of a bridge. In this instance three lanes are used, where the middle lane is used based on traffic needs. It also highlights the advantages and disadvantages of this and other types of systems.

Rough description of the USE stakeholders

In the case of smart roads, the following stakeholders in the USE frame can be defined. The stakeholders in the case of smart roads are:

Users

• Commuters (people who use the roads to go from their residence to their work)
• Leisure traffic (people who use the road for travels to the vacation or a day out)
• Public transport (as example buses and taxis)
• Residents living next to the roads (requirement: good traffic flow for a minimum noise problem)

Societity

• Government (the Dutch government is responsible for the maintenance and construction of the roads)
• Rijkswaterstaat
• Environment action groups

Enterprise

• Transport (transport of goods with use of lorries or other heavy traffic)
• Rijkswaterstaat (the active maintenance of the roads)

Requirements

The defined stakeholders and users in the list above have certain requirements in the case of smart roads. The requirements for each stakeholder can be found in the list below.

USERS

Commuters -> Commuters need well-maintained roads with enough lanes such they roads won't get jammed at rush-hour. Commuters use the roads to get to work. In the case that the roads get jammed, the commuters will be late on work or have to depart much earlier. But options are temporary, so the requirements for commuters are well accessible well-maintained roads which won't get jammed at rush-hour (between 07:00-09:00 and 17:00-19:00).

Leisure traffic -> Leisure traffic is traffic which uses the roads for pleasure purposes. The requirements for leisure traffic is the same as the requirements for commuters. The only difference is when the roads are needed. For leisure traffic, the roads need to be accessible around the weekends and vacation days.

Public transport Again the requirements are the same as the requirements mentioned above.

To conclude the requirements for the USER stakeholders are in general the same. The requirements for the USER are well accessible and well-maintained roads.

Society

Goverment -> Because roads are constructed from taxes money, is it key to keep it as cost efficient as possible. Another requirement for the government is that roads are well-useable. (ik heb echt geen idee)

Environment action groups -> These groups are fighting for less emission which is better for the milieu. This can be obtained by fewer cars on the (which isn't likely to happen) or better traffic flow such that there is less emission.

Enterprise

Transport traffic -> The requirements for transport traffic are well-maintained and accessible roads. An important note is that an important requirement for transport traffic is that it won't bother other road users. If transport traffic bothers road users, then the requirements of the above-mentioned users become in danger.

Rijkswaterstaat -> The requirements of for the maintenance of the road (rijkswaterstaat is responsible for the maintenance) is that the smart won't be too expansive to construct and not too expansive to maintain. So it is a requirement to keep the smart roads as simple as possible. If the smart road is simple, then maintance and the construction is in the scope of the construction workers.

Exact description of the USE stakeholders

As described in the section above ("rough description of the USE stakeholders") there are many groups of stakeholders which use the road. In this section, there is a better description and clarification of the defined stakeholders. The determined stakeholders are based on the sources about the chosen road and on defined stakeholders in section "rough description of the USE stakeholders". The percentages of the road users can be seen in figure (nog toevoegen).

Stakeholder

The first major stakeholders are commuters. Commuters are people who have to travel their living place to their workplace. Form the literature (bron toevoegen) it can be seen that (gekozen weg) is the connection between Amsterdam and the rest of the Netherlands. So it can be concluded that between 07:00 - 09:00 and from Monday up to and including Friday the road would be mainly used in the direction of Amsterdam (bron tegen aan gooien). The second important time period commuters use the road is around 17:00-19:00 on the same days. In this period most commuters will travel away from Amsterdam. As can be seen in the literature, the traffic jam (spits) causes by commuters is solvable through a simple solution (as for example an extra lane with gates at both ends). By designing the "'smart road" it is advisable to take these solutions into account. It is also advised to not defined the commuters as the main stakeholders by designing the "smart roads"

The second major stakeholders are traffic caused by transport. As can be seen in the literature the most common form of transport traffic is (heb hier bronnen voor nodig).

The third group of stakeholders are public transport. For the "smart road" public transport can be divided into two groups: scheduled transport, unscheduled transport. The first group (scheduled transport) is the larges group. The first group is the easiest in the problem of "smart roads", because of the schedule it easy to takes these into account. Secondly, public transport (like busses) are divided on the road. Because of the schedule of buses, it shouldn't be that multiple busses are presented at the same location at the same time. These two arguments based on the schedule it can be concluded scheduled public transport would not be the main focus by designing "smart roads". The second group is a negligible small group.

An important group of stakeholders are the people going on vacation. Here we have "heavy" vacation traffic and "light" vacation, here "heavy" vacation traffic are caravans and motorhomes. The "light" vacation traffic is the remaining vacation traffic. Because (gekozen weg) has a speed limit of 130 km/h "heavy" vacation traffic has a speed limit of at most 90 km/h. This speed is substantially different. In the case that a large group of "heavy" vacation traffic is going on the road at the same time (as for an example the dutch "zwarte vrijdag"), the road can get clogged. Vacations days are planned, this makes it possible to make a rough estimation. A possible case is that a large group of "heavy" vacation traffic and "light" vacation going on the road at an unpredictable time. By designing the "smart roads" vacation traffic is an important group to look at.

Least important stakeholder is the government. The Dutch government is responsible for maintaining and to construct the roads. It is important to take into account that the designed solution is not too expansive and not to technology hard to maintain. A too expansive "smart road" is not a feasible solution. An expansive "smart road" is possible for small local roads, but not for roads of large highways. For this research, it is looked at (gekozen weg) and the possibility of implementing the "smart road" on comparable roads. Secondly, the roads are paid form tax money. Impossible expansive roads would cost the taxpayer too much, such that the taxpayer would not accept it.

For the maintenance of the roads is Rijkswaterstaat. A road which is completely based on technology would require highly skilled maintenance staff (which again would be expansive to obtain). Also, the maintenance of the road would take a lot of time. At the moment road maintenance is (note this is a heavy simplified view) depositing concrete and painting the road stripes. When technology is heavy blended with technology, it would require a lot more preparation time (determining where what is) and more refined work. Form this is important that the "smart road" is designed such that it isn't technological to difficult.

Driver analysis

To simulate a road with traffic, a general idea of a basic human driver has to be implemented in code. In this simulation, it is assumed that everybody has an average response time with a slight (random) deviation each time. This response time is set to 1.4 seconds which is the 90th percentile according to this figure:

The random deviation that is taken is between -0.3 and 0.3 seconds, resulting in a final response time between 1.1 and 1.9 seconds

Improving traffic flow

Several concepts could be implemented to improve traffic flow on highways. Some are dynamic, meaning that the lane division of the road will change with the amount of vehicles on each side of the road, whereas other are stationary, thus will not the change the lane division, and don't exhibit any kind of element a smart road would have. Several of these concepts will be analysed below. This analysis will provide a basis for the quality of each concept (to what extent the concept actually solves the problem). Moreover, it will also demonstrate that our selected option is the most viable one around. One thing to note considering the problem is that adding more and more lanes on either side of the road is not a solution. This would be quite an expensive and environmental irresponsible alternative, which is not desired.

Carpool lanes

Carpool lanes (also sometimes called HOV-lanes) have already been around for a long time. They originate from the United States and Canada, but have also been present in Europe for quite a while (A1 Highway Netherlands, 1993). Their purpose is to minimize traffic congestion by allowing an extra lane for cars having multiple passengers. With the introduction of carpool lanes was also the intention to reduce the distance travelled by vehicles and thus minimize air pollution. It does not change the lane distribution, but instead adds an extra lane. It therefore would be a stationary solution to the main problem.

Figure ... Current day carpool lane on a busy interstate in the United States.

Since it has been around for quite some time we will not have to speculate about its effictiveness. The introduction of carpool lanes in the United States was said to reduce traffic congestion, but to what extent is this actually the case? Analysis of traffic data obtained in California disproves the claim [21]. Whilst this is just one example, it certainly is not the only one. First and probably most crucial is the fact that carpool lanes are heavily underutilized. Traffic flow and lane capacity during peak hours(the amount of vehicles passing a detector per hour per lane) is substantially lower than what is promoted. California Department of Transportation consider the traffic flow to be 1650 vehicles per hour per lane, but 80% of the samples are a marginable amount below this. So much less vehicles drive on carpool lanes compared to regular lanes. Furthermore, travel time that is saved by utilizing carpool lanes is rather small.

Figure ... Probabilty distribution of HOV travel time savings over a 10-mile route.

As can be seen from the figure above, the time save is minimal. The mean time saved is only 1.7, which is not so desirable as it will bare have an impact. A more desirable time save would be anywhere between five and ten minutes. However, the probability for the time save to be greater than 4 minutes is only 0.19, which is not that promising. On top of that, the small time save obtained by carpool does not encourage others to start carpooling. The analysis also concludes that the reduction of traffic congestion by the carpool lanes is almost negligible if regular lanes are allowed to be loaded with cars.

Carpool lanes therefore a rather poor solution to traffic congestion. They are merely usuable during the peak hours, as they lose their purpose outside of them, whenever it is not busy on the highways. Carpool lanes are a rather costly investment that would reduce congestion minimally and therefore would definetly not be the most optimal way to tackle the problem.

Stationary road barrier (slagboom-ish)

A different approach to reducing traffic congestion could be a stationary road barrier on each side of the road. Eventhough the barrier itself would be stationary, it will still have dynamic elements. Its implimentation is being experimented with in the United States already (apparently. bron + plaatje zoeken ). This system works well because of one lane that is in the middle of both sides of the road. This lane can be made available for either side whenever it is necessary to do so. Think for example about its use during peak hours. The extra available lane that is provided by this system for the direction in which it is necessary could improve traffic flow to such an extent that it will prevent any traffic jams.

(hier schets van systeem toevoegen)

This system (assuming one long extra lane) could theoretically also work in both directions of the road, just as carpool lanes do, but there is just one lane available. The edge this system has on carpool lanes is that it only requires the availability of one extra lane, instead of two lanes, which will reduce its cost substantially. Like carpool lanes, its most optimal use would be during peak hours, when it is quite busy on the roads. This system can also be used outside of the peak hours. It is not the most optimal, however. As only one side of the road can use the extra available lane at the time, the transition of the driving direction on the extra lane will not be the smoothest. To do this, first the lane has to be closed off for the side of the road it is made available for. Following that, the entiterity has to be cleared. Only after that has been done, the barrier for the other side can be opened. This process is quite time consuming, and thus is not the most optimal.

One way this could be solved would be to divide the lane into parts. This would allow for both directions to utilize the lane at the same time, at different locations. Eventhough the problem of transitioning is still there, the time it takes could be substantially reduced, which would allow for a more efficient traffic flow.

This system certainly can be a viable solution to the problem. It has the possibility to prevent traffic jams (or at least minimize the length of traffic jams), during and even outside of the peak hours. For the latter still a smooth way of transitioning has to be come up with but it certainly has potential. While it would be a better solution than carpool lanes, it still is not the most optimal one.

Moveable barrier system

Moveable barrier systems are a very promising dynamical solution to lane management on highways. These barriers are designed in such a way that they increase the capacity on the road by using the existing lanes and redistributing them, all whilst minimizing traffic congestion. This system is similar to the stationary barrier in the sense that both sides of the road can utilize the same lane, but at different times. Both sides of the road are seperated by a moveable line of concrete barriers. These barriers can be moved in such a way that an extra lane will be made available to the side which needs it.

Figure... A barrier moving machine in action.

Currently, the only way to move these barriers is by using big machinery. These machines can move two mile-long lanes of barriers in under 10 minutes. This is not that fast, so application to change barries over long distances is not very realisable currently. This system can currently only be used over short distances, but this would not be so effective then, since longer distances than one mile are traversed on highways.

Instead of just having one lane to divide between both sides of the roads, this system can be used much more freely, as shown below.

Figure... Visualisation of the freedom of the barrier movement system. Credit: Rob Bain (http://www.robbain.com/Moveable%20Barrier.pdf)

In the picture, three different lane distributions can be seen, depending on the time of the day. The barrier can be moved in such a way that it accomodates both directions of the road. Starting the redistribution timely can completely prevent any traffic congestion during peak hours. For this to work, the road needs to have a lot of lanes. An example of such a road would be the A2 between Utrecht and Amsterdam. The system could also be applied outside of peak hours to improve the traffic flow. Since the behaviour on the road is hard to predict, the speed of the machine matters a lot.

If instead of big machines, this barrier system could be automated, it could also be applied over much longer distances, and it would happen much faster. Automation of the barrier system will cut the time it takes to redistribute the lane tremendously. Since the moveable barrier system has not been introduced for a long time, automation will be a long term goal in the future and thus might take a while.

The moveable barrier system has a lot of potential. When the system is used on time for the bigger highways it can seriously improve traffic flow. The only drawback it has from being actively used is the amount of time it takes to move the barriers. As of now, this process is rather slow, but once it speeds up, this system can be a good solution to traffic congestion.

Changeable traffic lines

A somewhat similar solution to the moveable barriers is using

Simulation

The simulation will be made using the Unity3D software package. This software package will allow for relatively easy 3D simulations using ready-made models. It also includes physics simulations and scriptable interfaces.[1]

References

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