Agent Based Velocity Control of Highway Systems

In this paper we present a hybrid systems approach to freeway traffic control. We introduce a model of traffic which includes both vehicles and voids, where a void is a unit of space greater than the normal following distance between vehicles. The introduction of voids allows us to successfully model traffic flow via a wave model. We discuss the fundamentals of the Multiple Agent Hybrid Control Architecture which was used to implement our control of freeway traffic and the results of a simulation of our control. The main conclusion of our simulation is that one can significantly increase traffic throughput by controlling only 5-9% of the vehicles.