Surface transportation systems (e.g., arterial roadways with signalized intersections) are inherently inefficient, particularly at higher traffic volumes. In general, both the infrastructure (e.g., traffic signal) and the vehicles operate independently, with little coordination. Recent research from the research team has shown that implementing strategies that take advantage of infrastructure-to-vehicle communication can improve overall mobility and reduce environmental impacts (e.g., an Eco-Approach and Departure (EAD) application that takes advantage of signal phase and timing information). In this proposed research, the research team will build on past research to develop new cooperative traffic operation methods, methods that take advantage of not only infrastructure-to-vehicle communications, but also vehicle-to-infrastructure communications. In this effort, the investigators will integrate dynamic traffic signalization algorithms together with EAD algorithms to achieve improved traffic efficiency. This research will be carried out in simulation, followed by hardware-in-the-loop testing using a real-world instrumented vehicle and a traffic signal controller interacting with a microscale traffic simulator. It is expected that the results from this project will be applicable to real-world scenarios in the next three years.
