Traffic Congestion Avoidance on a Highway Using Information Floating

Abstract

Recently, traffic congestion on highways has become a greater problem due to heavy snow and other factors. To help vehicles avoid heavy traffic jams, sharing information on road and traffic conditions is increasingly important. However, during times of natural disaster, this problem becomes even more serious because mobile communication infrastructures, such as cellular systems, are disabled. In this paper, we describe methods of avoiding traffic congestion using information floating, which adopts direct wireless communication and does not require fixed communication infrastructure. In our proposed method, we supplement an established method by giving drivers a probabilistic choice of routes. We evaluate these methods by computer simulation and discuss their effectiveness on controlled-access highways, which have a unique characteristic in that vehicles can only enter or exit them via interchanges.