Flow-balanced-based collaborative strategies and simulation of vehicle group behaviors for on-ramp areas

The development of connected vehicle technology enables the coordinated control of vehicle group behaviors. This article investigates traffic flow characteristics in on-ramp areas from two aspects: road geometry length and lateral spatial distributions of traffic flow. The upstream and downstream flow-balance strategies for each lane in on-ramp areas are proposed. In different traffic conditions, various strategies are compared, and the advantages and disadvantages of these strategies and their application scopes are highlighted. The simulation results show that when traffic flow is low, the strategies of inducing all on-ramp vehicles to merge onto the outside lane of the main road are better. When the traffic flow is heavy, the strategies of inducing a particular ratio (e.g., 1:3:6) of on-ramp vehicles to merge onto the inside lane, middle lane, and outside lane work better and the downstream flow-balance strategies for each lane are better than the upstream flow-balance strategies. With the rapid development of information and communication technologies, the connected automatic vehicle technology will provide new ideas and methods for implementing the proposed flow-balance strategies. Therefore, research on the simulation of vehicle group behaviors in on-ramp areas can provide a theoretical basis and data support for ramp control and management, which has important guiding significance.