CENTRALIZED FOUR-LEGGED ROUNDABOUT CONTROL FOR AUTOMATED VEHICLES FLOWS.

Abstract

Abstract This research explores the application of Centralized Roundabout Control (CRC) to enhance the effectiveness of traffic at roundabouts under different traffic volumes. Although advantageous in practice at low traffic levels, conventional roundabouts often fail to sustain vehicle flow at higher demand levels, resulting in experiences such as queuing, increased waiting periods, increased fuel costs, and longer distances traveled. For these reasons, the CRC system was developed, and it is a traffic control solution that enhances roundabouts performance by orchestrating the entry of vehicles to reduce the waiting time and advance the traffic flow within the roundabouts. This research designed traffic at three volumes: low, medium, and high. It also used both MATLAB and VISSIM software for simulations. These simulations aimed to evaluate the performance of the CRC system in the current traffic control model, focusing on measurable performance factors such as waiting time, travel time, delays, bath throughput, fuel consumption, and stop time. The purpose of the MATLAB simulations was to measure the travel and waiting times of the vehicles crossing the roundabout. The results indicated that the application of the CRC system would lead to a reduction in the waiting and travel times for all the traffic volumes. For waiting time, the reductions were indicating that the CRC system can manage traffic even during peak hours. Travel times were also improved, indicating the practical ability of the CRC system to deal with traffic jams, enabling easy vehicle flow. These results indicate the ability of the CRC system to enhance traffic management systems by improving the drawbacks associated with the use of roundabouts in traffic. For the VISSIM simulations, five cases were reviewed: delay time, throughput and fuel consumption. All of the measures improved dramatically with the existence of the CRC system. vi For example, for Delay time, the reductions were the case with traffic volume, thus indicating the ease with which the CRC systems can handle both moderate and heavy traffic without undue delay. Throughput, or the vehicles number that were able to cross over the roundabout went , thus turning out again proving the system’s ability to foster the roundabout performance better by alleviating the problem of over congestion. There was also a reduction in the use of fuels, which is very important for commercial and ecological reasons, for example, in the CRC model. These reductions imply depreciation in the fuel wasted through proper traffic management to enhance efficiency and reduce the time for the vehicles to idle.