Design of a Robust Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control System on EDSA Bus Carousel for Improving the Current MRT Line 3 Operations

The train service efficiency in the Philippines is claimed to be one of the lowest in Asia. This can be attributed to the constant down time especially in the Mass Rapid Transit 3 (MRT 3) that is mainly caused by train breakdowns. As a result, the whole system slows down, and furthermore increases wait time. In line with this, the Philippine government offered an alternative along EDSA to the MRT, this system is known as the EDSA Carousel which makes use of a dedicated lane for buses throughout EDSA. Although this system alleviated some of the foot traffic in the MRT 3, there are things that still need to be improved in the EDSA Carousel itself. The main objective of this study is to explore possible improvement of the service through the application of a Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) system. Its benefits include lessening passenger load in MRT 3 thus resulting in less breakdowns, an alternative for commuters, its system modularity, and increased road safety. This study improves existing models of CACC to fit its use in the EDSA carousel by CACC system bus clustering which is presented in two parts: (1) the application of CACC within a cluster and (2) cluster to cluster control system. In terms of its aim to increase system efficiency, the EDSA carousel can overtake or bypass a broken vehicle in the system immediately ensuring lesser down times which cannot be applied to the MRT 3 operations.