A network traffic model with controlled autonomous vehicles acting as moving bottlenecks

In this study, we develop a traffic model to simulate network traffic evolution under the impact of controlled autonomous vehicles acting as moving bottlenecks. We first extend the Newell-Daganzo method to track the trajectories of moving bottlenecks and calculate the cumulative number of vehicles passing moving bottlenecks. By integrating the solutions to the cumulative number of vehicles passing moving bottlenecks and link nodes as boundary conditions in the link-transmission models, we can incorporate the impact of moving bottlenecks into the flow of traffic at a network scale. The numerical simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed model to track trajectories of the moving bottlenecks and simulate their impact on freeway traffic.