A Cooperative Trajectory Optimization Algorithm for Connected Vehicles in Merging Zones

Traffic flow optimization and trajectory guidance in merging zones have significant implications for improving capacity and reducing time consumption. The development of V2X communication provides new insights to solve this problem by tackling the information and releasing trajectories schemes. Therefore, this paper aims to discuss the trajectory management in the merging zone for ACC vehicles. A vehicle dispatching and car-following model is proposed to generate steady traffic flow first. An algorithm framework for consecutive traffic flow is presented with the idea of FIFO rules. Then, a two-step method for an individual vehicle is discussed in detail to compute a trajectory. The first step is to select and determine the priority of the optional gaps. The next step is to verify the options’ feasibility, decide on the target gap, and output the trajectories to merge successfully. Numerical experiments validate that the proposed method guarantees safe driving and provides relatively smooth trajectories to the vehicles. Furthermore, increased capacity and higher velocity are observed in a comparative experiment. The cooperative optimization algorithm could be applied efficiently in practice and benefit from its rapid response and low computation complexity.