A nonlinear optimal control approach for two-class freeway traffic regulation to reduce congestion and emissions

This paper proposes a freeway traffic controller with the objective of minimizing, at the same time, congestion phenomena and traffic emissions. A multi-class framework is considered in the paper, i. e two classes of vehicles (cars and trucks) are explicitly modelled and specific control actions for each vehicle class are computed. The controller is based on the formulation and solution of a constrained discretetime nonlinear optimal control problem for which a specific solution algorithm, the feasible direction algorithm, is used. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is shown and discussed in the paper by means of some simulation results.