Collective Traffic Control on Motorways

The following essay aims at the description of direct and indirect control mechanisms within the scope of real-time collective traffic control measures. A general system archtitecture of traffic control systems on motorways is presented, including the traffic data detection infrastructure, outstations to preprocess the detected impulses and to control the variable message signs (VMS), subcenters to process the traffic data for stretch control and Traffic Control Centers (TCC) for network monitoring and optimisation. Intelligent methods are needed to analyse the traffic flow with the goal of incident detection, data completion and the estimation od traffic states. The key role of the traffic control architecture has the Traffic Control Center TCC. The TCC monitors the trafic situation as well as the control situation and the infrastructure situation to alert the operators in case of any kind of incidents. Furtheron, the TCC is responsible for network management and the generation of traffic messages for driver information services. New developments in the area of congestion management are pointed out to improve the traffic network management by intelligent methods.