Project description
Innovative traffic management system
Urban traffic management can offer significant savings in travel time by providing tools to better distribute drivers in the network. Existing apps or routing systems achieve significant travel time reduction, but engineers suggest a further 10 % reduction is also possible. However, no traffic management system can achieve this due to computational, privacy and compliance reasons. The EU-funded MAGnUMplus project will develop a prototype of route guidance that improves urban traffic and guarantees privacy. The prototype relies on real-time avoidance maps produced by a centralised controller that receives information derived by monitoring overall traffic conditions. Each user transforms information into individual route guidance through its navigation system. The project will test the system in the field.
Objective
The PoC aims to develop a prototype for an optimal route guidance system that improves traffic conditions in urban areas. Urban traffic management at large-scale is very challenging but may lead to significant travel time savings by better-distributing drivers among the network. Existing navigation apps or routing systems provide the shortest-path in time to users resulting in the network user equilibrium. However, traffic engineers know that total travel times may be reduced by 10 to 30% if user routes comply with the system optimum. There is no actual traffic management system that can achieve such a goal because of computational (determining the optimal route for all current users in NP-hard), privacy (optimality requires that all users share their destination with a centralized controller) and compliance issues (users may not follow routing instructions).
The optimal route guidance system we have designed within the MAGnUM project can quickly solve the two first issues. A centralized controller produces real-time avoidance maps, i.e. the definition of how many users should avoid each subsection of the road network to alleviate congestion in this area. Such maps are derived by monitoring of overall traffic conditions. Each user transforms this information into individual route guidance through its navigation system. This privacy is guaranteed by design as the users share no information with the controller but only take benefit from avoidance maps.
The PoC will not only develop the prototype but also implement the system in the field to run experiments over three months. The experiments aim to (i) test the proper system functioning, (ii) derive optimal controller settings in particular concerning the network partitioning, and (iii) investigate users’ reactions to the guidance and determine the natural compliance rate. All the studies will permit us to assess the potential of the full system better and prepare the next steps before introduction to the market.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
ERC-POC-LS - ERC Proof of Concept Lump Sum PilotHost institution
77454 Marne-La-Vallee
France