Route guidance systems based on the macroscopic fundamental diagram concept: a Simulation-Based Case Study in the city of Portici

Recently, traffic management strategies, leveraging the Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram (MFD) paradigm, have gained a lot of interest since they allow to enhance urban network performance in term of efficiency and energy saving. Within this framework, this paper proposes a route guidance control system that, on the basis of traffic condition of each region, suggests to vehicles the best admissible route to follow. More specifically, a linear model is used to predict the evolution of traffic condition of each region over time on the basis of traffic data collected by loop detectors and, then, the MFD paradigm is exploited to estimate the time required to cross each region. In so doing, the control system computes the travel time of each admissible route and, in the end, suggests to each vehicle the one that minimize the travel time to reach a specific destination. Numerical simulations, carried out by exploiting SUMO microscopic traffic simulator and MATLAB, are performed to assess the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy in enhancing both the mobility and the environmental performances of the city network of Portici. The case without the control system is used as a base scenario. Results prove the effectiveness of the proposed routing control strategy in enhancing both mobility and environmental performance of the whole network w.r.t. the base scenario. Results prove the effectiveness of the proposed routing control strategy in enhancing both mobility and environmental performance of the whole network w.r.t. the base scenario.