Kinetic-controlled hydrodynamics for traffic models with driver-assist vehicles

Abstract

We develop a hierarchical description of traffic flow control by means of driver-assist vehicles aimed at the mitigation of speed-dependent road risk factors. Microscopic feedback control strategies are designed at the level of vehicle-to-vehicle interactions and then upscaled to the global flow via a kinetic approach based on a Boltzmann-type equation. Then first and second order hydrodynamic traffic models, which naturally embed the microscopic control strategies, are consistently derived from the kinetic-controlled framework via suitable closure methods. Several numerical examples illustrate the effectiveness of such a hierarchical approach at the various scales.