A Dynamic Zoning Cooperative Control Method for Urban Road Traffic Flow in a Connected Traffic Environment

The existing zoning collaborative control method cannot efficiently adapt to dynamic changes in traffic flow due to the fixed functional zoning of road segments. This study proposes the Dynamic Zoning COllaborative COntrol Method (DZCOM) for urban road traffic flow in a connected traffic environment. First, DZCOM dynamically divides the road segment into two functional zones, vehicle lane-changing and speed-adjustment zones, to integrate different driving behaviors. Second, to achieve rapid lane changes for multiple vehicles, a Multi-vehicle Cooperative Lane-changing Strategy based on Separate Lane-Speed Guidance (MCLS-SLSG) is designed, which rearranges the vehicles entering from the upstream intersection in longitudinal space, creating conditions for left- and right-turn vehicles to change lanes quickly. Finally, the trajectory of connected vehicles and the signal timing of intersections are jointly optimized based on the dynamic programming method to minimize average delay and ride comfort. The simulation results show that optimizing only the longitudinal trajectory of vehicles can reduce the average delay at intersections by 7.9% under moderate traffic volume. The joint optimization of vehicle trajectory and signal timing further reduced the average delay by 21.6%, demonstrating the effectiveness of DZCOM. Further research has shown that higher connected and automated vehicle penetration rates and speed limits can help reduce the average delay. Simultaneously, intersection spacing is another key factor restricting the operational effectiveness of the DZCOM; the method works best in the range of 400–600 m.