Proactive Mechanism for Supporting the Global Managment of Vehicle Traffic Flow

A method of managing vehicle traffic flow in a vehicle transportation system, said method comprising:

• creating an abstract representation of said transportation system that includes decision nodes representing intersections of roads within said transportation system and that includes links representing roads between said decision nodes,
• receiving current vehicle traffic flow rates for each of said links from a plurality of sensors located within said links;
• predicting future vehicle traffic flow rates for each outgoing link of each node based on current vehicle traffic flow rates for each incoming link of each said node and based on current vehicle traffic flow rates of each said outgoing link;
• comparing predicted vehicle traffic flow rates for each said outgoing link of each node to determine which of said outgoing links have the lowest vehicle traffic flow rates;
• routing vehicles of said transportation system to outgoing links that have said lowest vehicle traffic flow rates;
• and
• after routing said vehicles, adding vehicles routed to a link to a predicted vehicle traffic flow rate for said link.