CONGESTION ABATEMENT IN ITS THROUGH CENTRALIZED ROUTE ALLOCATION

We present a methodology for congestion abatement in ITS. It is based on the centralized management of route allocation to individual vehicles, aimed at minimizing the contention for the use of roadway facilities and the resulting congestion. The underlying principle is that of treating a system as a Store-and-Forward system, in which the use of roadways is allocated to individual traffic units in a way that minimizes the overall delay to the users of the system. Individual vehicles are given the opportunity to use Service Channels assigned by a Traffic Management Center (TMC). The Service Channels provide the best routes to individual travelers consistent with the goal of global system optimization. A discussion is given of: the possible evolution from early deployment of ITS, when only a few vehicles will be equipped with ITS instrumentation, to the days of full IVHS deployment.