Method and system for optimizing road traffic control in the presence of incidents

A computerized method for adjusting control parameters of a traffic management system in a presence of one or more incidents on a network, said method comprising:

• representing, using a tree format, a prioritization across network junctions, as executed by a processor on a computer;
• associating weights with each junction as a function of its height in the tree;
• and
• solving a real-time optimization of control parameters for the network, using the weights on the junctions,
• wherein, upon an occurrence of an incident in the network and depending upon a severity level of the incident, an incident-affected junction is selectively elevated higher in the tree, and reallocated junction weights resulting from the incident are used for solving the optimization of network control parameters,
• said method being incorporated into a control optimization framework that solves a time-dependent control problem on a rolling-horizon framework, implementing only first control point of the framework and then updating time steps and solving again.

A method of traffic control, comprising:

• representing a network for traffic as comprising a plurality of links interconnected by a plurality of nodes;
• loading a traffic model for execution by a processor on a computer, the traffic model comprising a fluid model, that describes a flow of traffic within links of said network, and a junction model, that describes how traffic on an incoming link to a node is propagated to outgoing links of the node, the traffic model assigning priority weights to the nodes of the network and using the priority weights for calculating parameters for optimal traffic control in the network;
• receiving, as input data into the computer, indication of current traffic on the network;
• exercising, by the processor, the traffic model with the received input data to calculate one or more control parameters;
• and
• outputting the one or more control parameters from the computer to one or more devices in the network that control traffic flow,
• wherein, upon an occurrence of an incident that causes a disruption in an existing traffic flow on the network, the traffic model adapts to the incident by changing one or more of the priority weights of nodes within the network, depending upon a location in the network and a severity of the incident.