Multi-class traffic flow and emission control for freeway networks

Multi-class emission models aim at capturing the heterogenous nature of traffic flows. These models are helpful for improving the efficiency of the reduction of emissions. We develop a macroscopic emission model that takes into account the multi-class nature of traffic. This results in a integrated macroscopic multi-class traffic flow and emission model called the multi-class VT-Macro model. Model predictive control is adopted to reduce the total time spent and the total emissions. End point penalties are included in the objective function, taking into account the different distances to the destination of different vehicles. A case study based on a benchmark network is implemented. The simulation results show that better performance is obtained by using the multi-class VT-macro model and end point penalties.