Highway Toll Collection Method for Connected Automated Vehicle Platooning Using Spatio-Temporal Grid Reservation

In the intelligent transportation system, the autonomous vehicle platoon is a promising concept for addressing traffic congestion problems. However, under certain conditions, the platoon’s advantage cannot be properly developed, especially when stopping for electronic toll collection (ETC) to pay the toll fee using the highway. This study proposes a software architectural platform that enables connected automated vehicles to reserve a grid-based alternative approach to replace current highway toll collection systems. A planned travel route is reserved in advance by a connected automated vehicle in a platoon, and travel is based on reservation information. We use driving information acquired by communication mechanisms installed in connected automated vehicles to develop a dynamic map platform that collects highway toll tax based on reserving spatio-temporal grids. Spatio-temporal sections are developed by dividing space and time into equal grids and assigning a certain road tax rate. The results of the performance evaluation reveal that the proposed method appropriately reserves the specified grids and collects toll taxes accurately based on a spatio-temporal grid with minimal communication time and no data package loss. Likely, using the proposed method to mediate driving on a one-kilometer route takes an average of 36.5 seconds, as compared to ETC and the combination of ETC and freeway road lane methods, which take 46.6 and 53.8 seconds, respectively, for 1000 vehicles. Consequently, our proposed method’s travel time improvements will reduce congestion by more effectively exploiting road capacity as well as enhance the number of platoons while providing non-stoppable travel for autonomous vehicles.

A multi-objective model for cordon-based congestion pricing schemes with nonlinear distance tolls

Congestion pricing is an important component of urban intelligent transport system.The efficiency,equity and the environmental impacts associated with road pricing schemes are key issues that should be considered before such schemes are implemented.This paper focuses on the cordon-based pricing with distance tolls,where the tolls are determined by a nonlinear function of a vehicles' travel distance within a cordon,termed as toll charge function.The optimal tolls can give rise to:1) higher total social benefits,2) better levels of equity,and 3) reduced environmental impacts(e.g.,less emission).Firstly,a deterministic equilibrium(DUE) model with elastic demand is presented to evaluate any given toll charge function.The distance tolls are non-additive,thus a modified path-based gradient projection algorithm is developed to solve the DUE model.Then,to quantitatively measure the equity level of each toll charge function,the Gini coefficient is adopted to measure the equity level of the flows in the entire transport network based on equilibrium flows.The total emission level is used to reflect the impacts of distance tolls on the environment.With these two indexes/measurements for the efficiency,equity and environmental issues as well as the DUE model,a multi-objective bi-level programming model is then developed to determine optimal distance tolls.The multi-objective model is converted to a single level model using the goal programming.A genetic algorithm(GA) is adopted to determine solutions.Finally,a numerical example is presented to verify the methodology.