The need for smart traffic control has grown over the last years. Initiated by an increased amount of traffic. Network-wide traffic control is becoming a more interesting field for traffic control. Mainly because computer power has increased and optimisation techniques improved. Network-wide traffic aims to improve the overall traffic state by looking at the entire problem instead of sub-problems. Besides improving traffic conditions, network-wide traffic control could support road operators in simplifying their work by taking over some tasks and keeping track of the situation.

For this research, we compare a pragmatic, user-friendly and transparent control method versus a Model Predictive Control (MPC) approach. For the MPC controller, the second-order macroscopic METANET model is chosen. The METANET model describes a network as a directed graph. We test both controllers on two small scale freeway traffic networks. The control measures that are implemented are ramp-metering and rerouting. The simulations are done in a SUMO environment. The key performance index (KPI) used for comparison is Total Time Spend (TTS). The resulting optimisation problem is a Mixed Non-linear Integer Problem (MINLP). This problem is solved with a heuristic method by a Genetic Algorithm (GA).

Simulations for the two networks in a demand scenario around critical density are analysed over 20 iterations. The results prove the potential of both algorithms since both improved the TTS significantly. The NM excels in ease of implementation and ease of understanding for non-experts. While the MPC outperforms the NM in TTS reduction, it is harder to configure and understand for non-experts. The MPC is successfully tested on its capability to prevent undesired behaviour from happening by adding penalties to the objective function. For future research, larger networks need to be investigated, with a focus on simplifying the resulting optimisation problem. It is expected that a piecewise affine approximation is a promising method.