Modeling And Simulation Of Vehicle Group Collaboration Behaviors In An On-Ramp Area With A Connected Vehicle Environment

As the merging section of an urban expressway main road and on-ramp traffic flow, on-ramp areas have serious merging conflicts. In the dynamic game between two streams of traffic flow, traffic congestion can occur and cause bottlenecks on expressways. With the development of vehicle intelligence and network technology, connected vehicles can form a platoon or a group and realize real-time dynamic communication. In this paper, the vehicle group collaboration behaviors of the main road and ramps in an on-ramp area are investigated with a connected vehicle environment, and the vehicle group model based on the theory of acceptable gaps is constructed. Using VISSIM simulation software, simulation scenarios are built based on time slice and virtual signal control strategies, and then, the proposed schemes are simulated and evaluated. By continuous optimization, the ideal time difference between the control ramp and the main road can be determined to form a better vehicle group length and acceptable gap, comprehensively utilize the limited road resources, improve the utilization rate of on-ramp areas and reduce delay. The experimental results show that the combined implementation of the mainline and ramp control strategies is more effective than that of only the mainline strategy. When the strategy cycle is large (more than 3 min), the time slice simulation strategy is more effective than the virtual signal strategy for improving the traffic efficiency of on-ramp areas. If the virtual signal strategy is adopted, a suitable signal cycle should be selected. The performance effect of vehicle generation schemes under different background traffic congestion is also discussed. Finally, the effect of micro car-following parameters (different levels of driving behaviors) on the platoon operation is evaluated in this paper.