Optimal Controls of Vehicle Trajectories in Fleet Management Using V2I Information

Given the raised focus on transport energy and traffic-induced environmental issues, the ability of reducing vehicular environmental impacts is of great importance for intelligent traffic management. The recent development in vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication provides an effective means for continuous management of vehicle driving. This study presents an essential step of the work towards a dynamic fleet management system that takes advantages of real-time traffic information and communication. Based on the optimal control theory, a methodological approach is developed to control the environmental impacts of live vehicle fleets. In particular, vehicle trajectories that minimize local environmental objectives are derived by applying a discrete dynamic programming method. Numerical examples show that the method is promising for local V2I based traffic management applications and can be further extended for more complex optimal control problems in dynamic fleet management.