Traffic management, making the shift from control to. communicative self-steering

Transcription

1 22 nd ITS World Congress, Bordeaux, France, 5 9 October 2015 Paper number ITS-2747 Traffc management, makng the shft from control to communcatve self-steerng Paul van Konngsbruggen, Jan Bosma, Nol Venema Technoluton B.V., the Netherlands, paul.van.konngsbruggen@technoluton.eu, M Abstract Cooperatve ITS started wth a clear technology push. Now that the necessary technology standards are n place or growng mature, the market pull needs to be strengthened. Strengthenng the market pull requres us to change paradgms n well-known domans. One of these domans s traffc management. Cooperatve ITS enables traffc managers to get n contact wth road users drectly and vce versa, whch makes traffc management more communcatve. Ths paper descrbes the paradgm shft to communcatve traffc management and the results of pre-deployment feld operatonal tests wth ths new form of traffc management along the E312 (A58) n the Netherlands. Keywords: cooperatve ITS, traffc management, deployment, pre-deployment feld tests Secton Ttle: TS09 - C-ITS deployment ssues 1 Introducton Although congeston and the traffc jams we are locked n mght be annoyng and dull for vehcle drvers, the underlyng prncples that caused congeston are exstng. Traffc s a complex system, where patterns such as traffc waves and traffc jams follow from dynamc nteractons between road users. Tradtonally traffc management s arranged top-down. The traffc manager oversees traffc, traffc volumes and emergng congeston or ncdents on the road. He uses hs understandng of the current traffc state to actvate measures to control traffc on ntersectons and specfc road stretches and to nform, warn and advce road users va rado or varable message sgns (VMS). The analogy wth water management or producton process management s rather clear. Desptes the smlartes, there s a sgnfcant dfference between road traffc flows and water flows or producton process flows. That dfferences are the lmted amount of partcles (here: vehcles) and, perhaps even more mportant, the human road user. We do not deal wth huge amounts of anonymous partcles that are bound n ther behavour by laws of physcs or producton logstcs. We deal wth a lesser amount of human bengs wth a need to socalze, a need to travel and wthn a certan bandwdth the capabltes to make ther own choces. Wth today s communcaton and nformaton

2 Traffc management, makng the shft from control to communcatve self-steerng technology we can connect traffc managers wth these road users. As such we can make the step from traffc flow orented traffc management to traffc management based on communcatve self-steerng [Cornels, 2000]. We can make the step towards communcatve traffc management,.e. traffc management that embraces the modern communcatve human vehcle drver. What s needed to make ths step? On conceptual level we have to establsh the lnk between road users wth ther ndvdual objectves (hence ndvdual optmum) and traffc managers wth a clear focus on the network optmum. On nformaton level we have to close the nformaton cycle between road users and traffc managers. On techncal level we can start wth usng the smartphone as the ultmate platform for connectng road users wth traffc managers and add specfc vehcle-to-nfrastructure ITS-G5 communcaton technologes. In ths paper we wll dscuss the bascs of these three levels and llustrate how n a publc prvate partnershp (PPP) the step s made towards deployng ITS nformaton servces as the lnkng pn between road users and traffc managers. A publc-prvate partnershp on the development of communcatve traffc management Before we step nto the detals, we should start wth ntroducng ourselves so the scope of the work done can be apprecated approprately. We started n a consortum of Technoluton, TomTom and wth the development of a dynamc lane gudance servce and assessed ths servce wth about 500 actve vehcle drvers n a feld operatonal test (FOT) along the E34 (A67). Usng the lessons learned from ths development and FOT we stepped as lead partner n a pre-commercal procurement project Spookfles (read: Phantom Jams) supported by Delft Unversty of Technology, Imtech Infra&Traffc and NXP Semconductors. The FOT was supported and co-funded by the Provnce of Noord-Brabant and the Mnstry of Infrastructure and Envronment va the Brabant In-car III programme. The am of the Spookfles PCP project s twofold. To the outsde the PCP project ntends to ntate the launch of communcatve traffc management servces that help to prevent so-called phantom jams. About 30% - 40% of the traffc jams s a phantom jam. To the nsde the PCP project works on a frst operatonal C-ITS archtecture n the Netherlands and a correspondng set of nterface specfcatons. An archtecture that s complant to the ETSI C-ITS standards and enables an open market of supplers of data, servces and cooperatve road sde, as llustrated n fgure 1. 2

3 Traffc management, makng the shft from control to communcatve self-steerng Fgure 1 - An open market constructon for communcatve traffc management After two selecton phases a set of sx (6) provders has resulted n the PCP project that n a PPP wth the provnce of Noord-Brabant, Rjkswaterstaat (the Dutch hghways agency) and the Mnstry of Infrastructure and Envronment wll operatonalse a communcatve shock wave (traffc wave) dampng servce wth about vehcle drvers (users) along the E312 (A58) between Tlburg and Endhoven n the Netherlands. A servce that has started n February 2015 usng 3G/4G a communcaton medum between vehcle and road sde and wll add ITS-G5 as communcaton medum from November 2015 on. The Technoluton lead consortum s one of the two servce provders that collaborates wth Be-moble, TomTom (va Smacan) and Rjkswaterstaat as data provders and Semens and Vals as provders of a cooperatve road sde. We provde the servce FlowPatrol ( The second servce provder s a consortum led by VTRON, provdng the servce Zoof ( Wth ths understandng of the context, we can step back to the three levels needed to be flled n for communcatve traffc management: conceptual, nformaton and techncal level. Conceptual level lnkng road users and traffc managers Road traffc s charactersed by a hgh level of self-organsaton. There are, however, systematc lmts to self-organsaton, that wll lead to abrupt phase transtons. Systematc lmts can be pnponted n the fundamental dagram (fgure 2).When condtons on the road become too crowded (read: densty s larger than the crtcal densty), effcent self-organsaton break down. The result s that flow performance (effectve capacty) decreases substantally, potentally causng more problems as demand (approachng traffc volume) stays at the same level. Ths s the self-destructve nature of road traffc: when network load s hgh, producton reduces causng problems to worsen further [Hoogendoorn, 2013]. 3

4 Traffc management, makng the shft from control to communcatve self-steerng Ths brng us at the underlyng objectve of traffc management, whch s to keep traffc flowng. In other words, keep densty at sub-crtcal level mantanng an effcent, safe and smooth traffc flow operatons. Fgure 2 - Illustratons of a fundamental dagram The causes for network deteroraton and deteroraton tself provde drectons for actve traffc management (so-called golden rules) [Hoogendoorn, 2013]: 1. prevent blockades: separate flows to prevent b-drectonal or crossng flows as much as possble n partcular for hgh-demand areas; 2. ncrease throughput: dentfy major bottlenecks and am to ncrease ther effectve capacty (e.g. by preventng capacty drop from occurrng at crtcal areas n network); 3. dstrbute flows over network: ensure usng under-utlzed parts of the network (e.g. usng gudance); 4. lmt nflow f needed: keep number of road users on (crtcal) road sectons below crtcal number (e.g. by traffc control). These goals are formulated from the road network perspectve. Lnkng traffc managers to road users requres us to formulate these goals from the road users perspectve too. If we want road users to help to prevent blockades, we need to explan them why preventng b-drectonal or crossng flows as much as possble s useful for them. The same for the other three golden rules ncreasng throughput, dstrbutng flows over network and lmtng nflow at crtcal road sectons. Formulatng network goals from the road users perspectve starts wth dervng warnngs and advces from traffc management measures that wll be brought to road users on the approprate locaton and approprate moment n tme. In fgure 3 the frst deas are llustrated that have been tested on the E34 (A67) and that wll be used n an mproved verson along the E312 (A58) n the Netherlands. 4

5 Traffc management, makng the shft from control to communcatve self-steerng Fgure 3 - Illustraton of n-vehcle warnngs and advces derved from traffc management measures The dea now s that the golden rules wll emerge from warnngs and advces to road users on the approprate locatons and approprate moments n tme, as llustrated n fgure 4 [Leburg, 2005]. Self recognton (where am I, what s my status, what s t what I am dong, what are my surroundngs lke?) I - I c I + temper the nflow va slow down and keep headway advce damp out shock wave va slow down and ncrease headway warnng ncrease the outflow from traffc jam head va speed up and keep headway advce Fgure 4 - Illustraton of communcatve traffc management va ndvdual road user warnngs and advces In hs PhD thess Wouter Schakel (partner n our consortum) elaborated and assessed the prncples of n-car advce on headway, speed and traffc lane [Schakel, 2015]. Ths thess s used as the fundamental bass of our servce FlowPatrol. A bass that we wll mplement step-by-step n close collaboraton wth our servce users, the flow patrollers. Informaton level close the nformaton cycle between road users and traffc managers The frst step has been and often stll s to use data from road bound sensors such as nducton loops. Along the A58 Rjkswaterstaat provdes 1 mnute loop data (ntenstes and speeds) wthn 30 s, so wth a really lmted latency. As a next step GPS based real tme traffc data from (separately) 5

6 Traffc management, makng the shft from control to communcatve self-steerng Be-Moble and TomTom s added. The loop data and GPS based data together provde us wth an overvew of the evolvng traffc state on the traffc lanes of the A58 motorway. As servce provder we use an own traffc vewer to follow the traffc state and learn to apprecate the traffc state data provded to us by Be-Moble and Smacan (fgure 5). Lesson learned s that traffc phenomena such as traffc waves wth a hgh speed of emergng and propagaton ask for hgh frequency and lane based sensng methods. So far nducton loops have n themselves a better performance than GPS based real-tme traffc data gven the current penetraton rates of vehcles provdng GPS based data to data provders. Furthermore nducton loops provde both ntenstes and speeds hence denstes on the traffc lanes, whch enables traffc state forecasts. The data provders n the Spookfles A58 concentrate on smart fuson of nducton loop data and GPS based data n order to enable hgh qualty traffc state estmatons usng less nducton loops then Rjkswaterstaat has to mantan nowadays. As a next step the A58 s now equpped wth G5 based roadsde ITS statons. The cooperatve awareness messages (CAM) from the wth ITS-G5 equpped vehcles wll add another rch set of data to the data pool. Fgure 5 - Example of the traffc flow n the form of a tme/path dagram As servce provder we dentfy the movng fronts and tals of traffc waves (shock waves) and traffc jams from the evolvng traffc states. Usng the concept as dscussed n the paragraph on the conceptual level of communcatve traffc management, we use these fronts and tals to generate locaton and tme bound warnngs and advces for the vehcle drvers drvng on the A58. In fgure 6 an example s presented of advces gven to a specfc vehcle drver (a user of our servce FlowPatrol) and the moment n tme the advces are gven. 6

7 Traffc management, makng the shft from control to communcatve self-steerng Fgure 6 - Illustraton of advces gven to vehcle drvers and the moment n tme the advces are gven Techncal level an archtecture of open nterfaces In the end, communcatve traffc management can only emerge and survve f t can fnd ts foundaton on an archtecture wth open nterfaces between traffc management centres, traffc management centres and road sde (ITS) statons, traffc management centres and vehcle (ITS) statons, and road sde (ITS) statons and vehcle (ITS) statons. Such an archtecture s under constructon on varous hotspots n Europe. One of these hotspots s Converge n Germany, another s the Spookfles PCP n the Netherlands. Therefore a modular archtecture has been desgned wth open nterfaces, n whch the role of data provders, servces provders and provders of cooperatve nfrastructure s clearly dstngushed. The whole dea s llustrated n fgure 7. Fgure 7 - Illustraton of the dea behnd the modular archtecture Essental for ths archtecture s that the C2X nterfaces A1 and B1 n fgure 7 are complant to the ETSI C-ITS standards. The other nterfaces are brought n place to embed the C2X n a full operatonal system, ncludng the connecton wth the legacy road sde and central systems. The open nterfaces make t possble for thrd partes to hook nto the platform and provde addtonal servces such as: data enrchment, servces to road users, G5 based road sde ITS statons and/or G5 based 7

8 Traffc management, makng the shft from control to communcatve self-steerng vehcle ITS statons. A full descrpton of the archtecture and nterface specfcatons s depcted n system and subsystem specfcaton (SSS), nterface requrements specfcaton (IRS) and nterface desgn descrptons (IDD) of the Spookfles PCP project. FlowPatrol, a communcatve traffc management servce The servce FlowPatrol s operatonal snce February 2015 n the so-called connected mode usng 3G/4G for vehcle road nfrastructure communcatons. We started wth a new human-machne nterface (HMI) n the form of a vrtual radar (fgure 8). After all, the whole dea s to make vehcle drvers aware of the on-comng traffc wave so he or she can adjust the drvng speed and headway n order to help to damp out ths traffc wave and as such prevent a so-called phantom jam. Fgure 8 - Evoluton n the HMI of the FlowPatrol servce Dampng out traffc waves and preventng phantom jams only works f enough vehcle drvers follow upon the warnngs and advces. In the FOT we learn hands-on about the complancy of the users wth regard to our servce, whch enables us to enhance the servce over tme. In table 1 the complancy to the advces gven by FlowPatrol s gven for the connected servce as measured durng the perod March up to May Drvng drecton Month Number of advces gven Number of advces followed-up on t=10 Number of advces followed-up on t=20 Total number of advces followed-up t=10 + t=20 Percentage complant behavour Endhoven-Tlburg March Aprl May Tlburg-Endhoven March Aprl May TOTAAL Table 1 - Measured complancy to the advces gven by FlowPatrol 8

9 Traffc management, makng the shft from control to communcatve self-steerng Next steps Now the FlowPatrol servce s operatonal and the number of users grows every month, we are workng n the PCP project on the next steps. The frst step s to stablse the vehcle road sde communcatons ITS-G5 va a seres of chan tests durng the summer of 2015 and make the step from a sec connected to a connected (3G/4G) & cooperatve servce (ITS-G5) n October Therefore we wll equp 700 of the FlowPatrol users wth a self-developed ITS-G5 unt that functons as a router between the smartphone and the G5 based roadsde ITS staton. In addton we wll add PKI based certfcates to enable both the vehcle and road sde to verfy the cooperatve messages receved. Therefore a frendly verson of the ETSI defned trusted chan for C-ITS has been developed and made operaton wthn the PCP project. From November on we wll measure n real-lfe the true added value of a cooperatve servce wth respect to a connected servce and the advantages t brngs n communcatve traffc management. Acknowledgements The way Technoluton has desgned and developed the FlowPatrol servce and the correspondng ITS-G5 module (the FlowRadar) follows the desgn and development process as elaborated n the Ecsel project DESERVE. References 1. El-Rabbany, A. (2002). Introducton to GPS, The global postonng system, Boston, London: Artech House. 2. Bosma, Jan, Paul van Konngsbruggen (2015), Spookfles A58, Rapport prestate connected Spookfledenst, verse 1.0, Gouda, the Netherlands 3. Bosma, Jan, Paul van Konngsbruggen, Nol Venema (2015), Spookfles A58, Rapportage Kwaltet van het adves, verse 1.0, Gouda, the Netherlands 4. Cornels, prof.dr. Arnold (2000), Logca van het Gevoel, ISBN , negende druk Stchtng Essence, Amsterdam/Brussel/Mddelburg 5. Hoogendoorn, prof.dr. Serge (2013), The Lvng Crowd, from crowd dynamcs to prncples for crowd management, OP _12_Hoogendoorn.pdf 6. Leburg, A, P.H. van Konngsbruggen (2005), Swarmng of Vehcles n order to enhance the Qualty of the Traffc flow on Manoeuvre Level, techncal paper for the ITS World Congress 2005, San Francsco, USA 7. Schakel, dr. W. (2015), Development, Smulaton and Evaluaton of In-car Advce on Headway, Speed and Lane, TRAIL Thess Seres nr. T2015/9, TRAIL Research School, ISBN: , Delft, the Netherlands 9

10 Traffc management, makng the shft from control to communcatve self-steerng 8. Spookfles A58 PCP team (2015), Spookfles A58 System / Subsystem Specfcaton, s-hertogenbosch, the Netherlands Webstes