An Integrated Lane Change Control Method for Freeway Segments With Lane Drop in a Connected Mixed Traffic Environment

Segment with lane drops are very important in freeway systems since they are major constrains to traffic flow and safety. The frequency of capacity reductions and higher safety risks is proportional to an increase in lane-changing actions, which worsen traffic congestion, decrease road capacity, and increase the risk of an accident. Traditional traffic management strategies that rely on physical structures and driver’s decision making often fail under such conditions. This paper provides a detailed lane change control strategy specific to freeway segments with lane reduction in the connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) environment. The strategy combines both centralized and decentralized techniques to improve the vehicle’s lane-changing behavior and density. A cellular transmission model of lane-level is proposed for the centralized control of the linked vehicles based on the ratio of the driver compliance. The model derives the density equation and transforms the lane-changing problem before the work zone into merging traffic flow problem. The optimization model is developed based on the total trip time, density deviation, and total lane changes, with constraints on the cell reception capacity and lane changing ratios. Control parameters for lane change distribution are identified using genetic algorithms to solve the problem. For the decentralized control, a reinforcement learning solution is introduced which uses deep Q-networks (DQN) to improve lane-changing actions. The reward function takes into account the traffic efficiency and the impact of lane changing, and the continuous action space is discretized for application. The control mechanism is evaluated by the simulation of a work zone scenario that includes two restricted lanes on the Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway. It also shows that there is an improvement of 3% to 6% in traffic flow and velocity as compared to single-strategy approaches. The collaborative control strategy significantly enhances traffic flow and reduces congestion at bottlenecks and offers valuable information for future traffic control in CAV environments.