First steps from a traffic node to traffic networks — Modeling and stability

Introducing decentralized control concepts in traffic networks opens up the potential to deal with high system complexity and to increase disturbance robustness. However, influencing the traffic dynamics with a decentralized concept, and hence having only a local view of the network, can cause undesirable effects such as oscillating traffic flows and traffic jams. This paper presents a traffic oscillation problem based on delayed feedback information. Realistic traffic data is used to generate an aggregated continuous model of a traffic intersection, based on which frequency and time domain approaches to stability analysis can be applied. Drawing upon the results of single traffic intersections, different traffic network constellations are examined to form a basis for modeling and stability analysis of complex traffic systems.