Dynamic one-way traffic control in automated transportation systems

In a project on underground freight transportation using Automated Guided Vehicles, single lanes for traffic in two directions are constructed to reduce infrastructure investment. Intelligent control rules are required to manage vehicle flows such, that collision is avoided and waiting times are minimised. In contrast to standard traffic control at intersections, these control rules should take into account significant driving times along the single lane (in our application up to 8 min). Whereas periodic control rules are often applied in traffic theory, we focus on adaptive rules such as look-ahead heuristics and dynamic programming algorithms. Numerical experiments show that our control rules reduce waiting times by 10-25% compared to a straightforward periodic rule. Dynamic programming yields the best results in terms of mean waiting times. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.