CV-MP: Max-Pressure Control in Heterogeneously Distributed and Partially Connected Vehicle Environments

TL;DR

This work presents CV-MP, a max-pressure traffic signal controller that leverages real-time CV travel-time information to compute pressure, thereby incorporating both the spatial distribution and temporal delays of vehicles. It supplies a generalized MP framework with sufficient stability conditions and proves network queue stability for CV-MP in both perfect and imperfect CV environments, including heterogeneously distributed and partially connected CVs. Empirical validation on an Amsterdam corridor shows CV-MP substantially reducing average delays and spillovers across CV penetration rates and improving fairness between CV and NV delays, compared with actuated control and conventional MP variants. The results demonstrate the practical potential of CV-MP to robustly regulate urban networks under realistic CV penetration patterns, while outlining challenges related to low penetration, fairness, and privacy that warrant further work.

Abstract

Max-pressure (MP) control has emerged as a prominent real-time network traffic signal control strategy due to its simplicity, decentralized structure, and theoretical guarantees of network queue stability. Meanwhile, advances in connected vehicle (CV) technology have sparked extensive research into CV-based traffic signal control. Despite these developments, few studies have investigated MP control in heterogeneously distributed and partially CV environments while ensuring network queue stability. To address these research gaps, we propose a CV-based MP control (CV-MP) method that leverages real-time CV travel time information to compute the pressure, thereby incorporating both the spatial distribution and temporal delays of vehicles, unlike existing approaches that utilized only spatial distribution or temporal delays. In particular, we establish sufficient conditions for road network queue stability that are compatible with most existing MP control methods. Moreover, we pioneered the proof of network queue stability even if the vehicles are only partially connected and heterogeneously distributed, and gave a necessary condition of CV observation for maintaining the stability. Evaluation results on an Amsterdam corridor show that CV-MP significantly reduces vehicle delays compared to both actuated control and conventional MP control across various CV penetration rates. Moreover, in scenarios with dynamic traffic demand, CV-MP achieves lower spillover peaks even with low and heterogeneous CV penetration rates, further highlighting its effectiveness and robustness.

Figures (12)

• Figure 1: Network definition.
• Figure 2: Different cases with the same number of vehicles
• Figure 3: Travel time information of CVs
• Figure 4: Simulated corridor at Amsterdam
• Figure 5: Overall performance in fully connected environments

Theorems & Definitions (25)

• Remark 1: Turning intensions of CVs
• Remark 2: Heterogeneously distributed and partially CV environments
• Definition 1: Traffic network stability
• Definition 2: Lyapunov function
• Lemma 1: Sufficient condition for traffic network stability
• proof : Proof of Lemma \ref{['lemma: sufficient condition']}
• Definition 3: Admissible demand region
• Remark 3: Matrix form of generalized MP controller
• Lemma 2: Upper bounds related to traffic density and flow rate
• proof : Proof of Lemma \ref{['lemma: upper bounds of density and flow']}