Generic Model Predictive Control Framework for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems

This thesis deals with a model predictive control framework for control design of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, where car-following tasks are under control. The framework is applied to design several autonomous and cooperative controllers and to examine the controller properties at the microscopic level and the resulting traffic flow...

Nautical traffic modelling for safe and efficient ports

Methodology to assess ports and waterways on safety and capacity (poster + abstract)

Characteristics of Chinese Driver Behavior

The high growth rate of vehicle ownership and many novel drivers in China determine the special features of Chinese driver behavior. This thesis introduces a comparative study on driver behavior by the analysis of saturation flow at urban intersections, Driver Behavior Questionnaire surveys, focus group discussion, and in-car tests. The main...

Multi-class continuum traffic flow models: Analysis and simulation methods

How to model and simulate traffic flow including different vehicles such as cars and trucks? This dissertation answers this question by analyzing existing models and simulation methods and by developing new ones. The new model (Fastlane) describes traffic as a continuum flow while accounting for different types of vehicles. It is reformulated in...

Lagrangian Multi-Class Traffic State Estimation

Road traffic is important to everybody in the world. People travel and commute everyday. For those who travel by cars (or other types of road vehicles), traffic congestion is a daily experience. One essential goal of traffic researchers is to reduce traffic congestion and to improve the whole traffic system operation and the environment. To...

Vehicle-class Specific Control of Freeway Traffic

The increase of mobility of the past decades has led to substantial congestion on the freeways. Traffic jams emerge both on a daily basis at the same location, as well as during accidents when a part of the freeways is temporarily blocked. In those cases, traffic management centers intervene into traffic in order to reduce or even dissolve...

Robust model-based optimization of evacuation guidance

Large scale disasters, such as floods and fires, cause many casualties. This risk of casualties is reduced by evacuating the people from the threatened region. By guiding these people, i.e. instructing them when and where to go, the efficiency of the evacuation is increased. This means that, for example, the time needed for the evacuation is...

Turborotonde en turboplein: Ontwerp, capaciteit en veiligheid

Historical Context The idea to install one-way circulatory traffic management on intersections was struck around 1900, both in the USA and Europe. The devisers regarded the principle of merging and weaving essential for the rotary system and, in practice, right of way had not yet been regulated unambiguously. This resulted in traffic circles...

Transportation Modelling for Regional Evacuations

Regional evacuation planning is complex and timely. These planning studies can be assisted by a transportation model. In this thesis, we investigate the requirements for such a model, and develop, implement, and test a new model, called EVAQ, which meets these requirements. Two case studies show how EVAQ can be used to assess the success and...

Fusing Heterogeneous Traffic Data: Parsimonious Approaches using Data-Data Consistency

Reliable and accurate estimation of traffic states play an important role in traffic management and traffic theory development, which therefore has significant social and scientific relevance. Data for traffic estimation normally from different sources and have different types, characteristics, etc, so data fusion techniques are used. Traffic...

Intelligent Route Guidance

The dissertation research deals with the design of the controller for a Dynamic Route Guidance System (DRGS) that uses both road side variable message signs as well as in car personal navigation devices. The DRGS is able to determine user- and system optimal route guidance advices in real-time for realistic networks using a model predictive...

A System for the Acquisition and Analysis of Image Sequences to Model Longitudinal Driving Behavior

Traffic causes important problems in many societies. Considerable amounts of energy, money and time are wasted in traffic jams and even more important are car accidents and casualties in traffic (more than 40,000 deaths per year in the USA (Hitti (2005)) and 791 deaths in 2007 in the Netherlands (van Verkeer en Waterstaat (2008))). To alleviate...

Road Incidents and Network Dynamics: Effects on driving behaviour and traffic congestion

Incidents cause a large part of the congestion on the road. This PhD study describes how people change their behaviour when facing an incident situation. It is found that car-following behaviour changes and drivers react slower on their predecessors. Furthermore, it is found that drivers change their route when facing unexpected delay caused by...

Traffic Information and Learning in Day-to-Day Route Choice

The aim of the research is to gain insight into the impact of traffic information on day-to-day route choice. The effects of both en-route information and ex-post information are studied. Special attention is given to three other important aspects in day-to-day route choice: learning from experience and information, habits and the effect of...

Longitudinal driving behavior: Theory and empirics

Congestion is a serious problem in many countries around the world. Consequently a lot of effort is put in inventing smart methods for reducing congestion. Whether these measures lead to the desired effect appears to be largely dependent on the driving behavior of individual road users. It is therefore not surprising that the effects of measures...

Assisted overtaking: An assessment of overtaking on two-lane rural roads

At the start of the 21st century overtaking on two-lane rural roads is a major traffic safety problem. However, this dissertation research demonstrates that most drivers are perfectly able to safely perform these manoeuvres. Their time spent in the left lane is about eight seconds. Preparing subtasks of the manoeuvre, such as checking...