Two Applications of Intelligent Transportation System.

Two Applications of Intelligent Transportation System by Hao Zhou Chair: Romesh Saigal We consider here two essential technologies of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS): Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communication. In Chapter II, we present a method to automatically control a platoon of vehicles equipped with V2V devices. One of the major issues with platoon control is latency in wireless communications. Latency has a negative impact on safety and disrupts the stability of platoons. We propose a decentralized longitudinal platoon-controlling mechanism that uses a Model Predictive Control (MPC) approach to ensure vehicles safety, even in high-latency communications environments. The sensitivity of this method is analyzed to derive the conditions for the safety of the vehicles in the platoon. A simulation test bed for this control method is implemented to test its effectiveness and safety under two communications latency settings. The results show that the model predictive control method can safely control the platoon even in highlatency communications environments. In Chapter III, we propose a combinatorial auction implemented via a V2I system to toll and allocate traffic to eliminate congestion on a sub-network of links. We deviii sign a Vickrey-Clarke-Groove (VCG) type auction mechanism, which enables vehicles to bid for paths through V2I devices before entering the network. Using the individual vehicle bids, an optimization problem is formulated and solved, to generate the assignment of vehicles to paths and the corresponding tolls. The underlying model is analyzed for its special properties. We prove that this auction mechanism guarantees truthful reporting and maximizes the social utility. We then test this auction mechanism in two numerical experiments: first with a network of 6 links and 5100 vehicles, and then in a network with 98 links and 12000 vehicles. We prove that in a multiple origin-destination network, it is necessary to add an additional free path for each origin destination pair, in order to guarantee that the toll is always no greater than the bid made by the vehicle. We also discuss various implementation issues of this model, including use of a rolling horizon for multiple-round auctions, and the potential of this auction system as a toll setting mechanism for High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) or (High-Occupancy Tolled) HOT lanes.