Evaluation of vehicle control algorithm to avoid conflicts in weaving sections under fully-controlled condition in urban expressway

Weaving section is one of the major bottlenecks in urban expressway network. A field observation showed that approximately 80% of the weaving vehicles changed their lanes within the most upstream 25% part of the entire section length. It means an insufficient use of provided infrastructure, and strategies to use them are necessary. Then this study developed vehicle control algorithms to avoid conflicts in weaving sections and aimed to achieve the capacity improvement. The proposed algorithms were implemented into a microscopic traffic simulation model in order to evaluate their effects. Two types of weaving sections and several scenarios of weaving ratios were prepared. The amount of the throughput at the downstream section was counted and the lane change positions of individual vehicles were recorded. The result showed that the total throughput was decreased gradually as the weaving ratio was increased. However, this drop were improved significantly by applying some algorithms. This means that there is a potential to utilize the existing infrastructure more efficiently and to alleviate congestion without huge construction investment.