LAUSR

Traffic control of urban areas is a current research topic. Different pricing regimes such as cordon pricing, time-based average cost zone pricing, distance-based average cost zone pricing or marginal cost zone pricing have been investigated so far. The economical best solution, however, cannot be used due to the lack of information. In the study, the future of road pricing together with traffic control is analysed with the assumption of widespread information and communications technology (ICT) usage, i.e. access to real-time information. The study proposes a utility-based dynamic road pricing for optimal traffic flow management. The research largely focused on the model and regulator definition [fixed, dynamic, and non-linear model predictive control (MPC)]. The theoretical research was conducted on a real-world traffic test network by applying different control methods and taking into account the time-delay effect of traffic forecasting. The simulation results show that time delay in response to vehicle concentration can result in significant oscillation on the concurrent routes in case of fixed and dynamic control, but can be compensated by non-linear MPC. As a major result, it is shown that with the market penetration of ICT, a new era of road tolling regimes could be introduced.