关键词: 交通工程；合流区；车路协同；可变限速控制；安全间距；METANET模型

Abstract: To address the issue of low traffic efficiency in the merging area of expressways, real-time information collection and interaction technology in the cooperative vehicle infrastructure environment were used. Based on the Gipps safety distance model, the METANET model was enhanced by incorporating dynamic safety distance into the variable speed limit control. The control method and model for variable speed limit control on the mainline were established and ramp vehicles were guided to merge into the mainline by use of available gaps, which improved the traffic efficiency in the merging area of expressway and the success rate of ramp merging. Finally, VISSIM and MATLAB were used to jointly build a simulation control environment to simulate and evaluate the proposed control strategy under different flow rates. The research results show that under medium and high flow rates, the proposed variable speed limit control strategy increases the speed by 8.75% and 9.28%, reduces the density by 9.45% and 9.77%, reduces the travel time by 9.29% and 8.88% and reduces the delay by 9.21% and 8.84%, respectively. It is demonstrated that the proposed variable speed limit control strategy can enhance the traffic efficiency in the merging area and improve the operational state of traffic flow.

Key words: traffic engineering; merging area; cooperative vehicle infrastructure system; variable speed limit control; safe distance; METANET model