Estimation of Travel Time Based on Vehicle Platoons on Saturated Urban Arterial Roads

Because of the aggressive and saturated traffic on the current urban arterials, traffic congestion often occurs, traffic lights periodically interrupt traffic, resulting that vehicles frequently block upstream intersections. However, the traditional continuous traffic flow models are unable to estimate the travel time on saturated urban arterial roads with stop-and-go traffic flow. In view of this, an innovative algorithm for arterial roads travel time estimation based on vehicle platoons is proposed to meet the timing requirements of interrupted traffic flow. Using high-resolution and real-time traffic data acquired by existing detectors on a road, research efforts are devoted to discriminating and matching platoons, thus attaining the goal of estimating the travel time on saturated urban arterials. Simulation studies based on Q-Paramics show ideal results after comparison between the estimated results of the proposed algorithm and observed results of the simulation model. The results prove the rationality and validity of the algorithm. Thereby the paper provides an academic basis for researching the state of traffic on saturated urban arterials.