Dynamic Geo-Fencing for Polycentric Congestion Management: A Simulation-Based Analysis

Our cities are growing at an unprecedented pace. The flexible use of metropolitan infrastructures is the key to maintaining, if not increasing, the current quality of life. The combined use of geo-fence technology and connected vehicles can be the tool to achieve this flexibility. In this paper, we take a first step in the evaluation of the benefits that dynamic geo-fencing could bring. In a simulation-based environment, we employ a computer vision approach to dynamically identify congested areas in a given transportation network. We then compare the performance of perimeter control based on dynamic geo-fencing vs conventional perimeter strategies, based on a fixed, pre-determined area–a scenario mimicking traffic management approaches currently deployed in large metropolitan areas worldwide. Simulation results highlight a reduction of more than 20% of the Total Time Spent in a regular Manhattan grid network, encouraging further efforts to validate the efficiency of dynamic geo-fencing in addressing externalities (congestion, pollution, noise, etc.) in more realistic scenarios.