Optimal control strategies for urban traffic networks

This thesis is the pursuit of optimal traffic signal controls for the most efficient use of the available road infrastructure. In general, the traffic signal control policies should provide road authorities with practical instructions while retain the optimality. To this end, we have proposed three novel optimal signal controls in both centralized and distributed regimes. The Model Predicted Control framework optimizes multiple control objectives while considering traffic dynamic/evolution by its predictive power. The BackPressure based distributed control strategies are provable to have maximum network throughput without the need for network demand knowledge. Given those advantages, the thesis has fully adapted those control methodologies into the road traffic networks.