Performance evaluation of an intelligent dynamic merge control system for highway work zones

Despite the potential effectiveness of the dynamic late merge (DLM) control, most existing systems are based on static thresholds, which cannot best perform under time-varying traffic conditions. This paper presents an advanced DLM control model and its operation algorithm that take into account the interactions between the speed, flow, and available work zone capacity. The focus of this study is on how to select the control variables and to determine their optimal thresholds in response to traffic flow dynamics. Evaluation results with extensive simulation experiments have shown the promising properties of the proposed DLM control and its algorithm