Dynamic Speed Limit Control of Connected Automated Vehicles in Freeway Networks Considering Traffic Composition Uncertainty

Lei Wei, Yu Han, Haiyang Yu, Yunpeng Wang

Dynamic speed limit control has emerged as a promising strategy to improve freeway sustainability in mixed traffic environments with connected automated vehicles (CAVs). However, most existing approaches assume that the CAV penetration rate is deterministic and can be accurately known throughout the control horizon. In reality, the penetration rate has inherent observation errors, leading to uncertainty in mixed traffic composition, which in turn degrades control performance. To overcome this limitation, this study proposes a novel model predictive control (MPC) framework for dynamic CAV speed limit control in freeway networks that explicitly incorporates traffic composition uncertainty into both flow prediction and control optimization. An uncertainty-aware macroscopic mixed traffic model is first developed, where the uncertain penetration rate propagates through the mixed fundamental diagram to the flow dynamics by affecting the mixed free-flow speed, capacity, and capacity drop condition. Then, a traffic composition-aware MPC is formulated to optimize CAV speed limits against multiple admissible penetration rate realizations, thereby improving control robustness under heterogeneous traffic conditions. Simulation experiments are conducted on both a single-bottleneck freeway corridor and a multi-bottleneck freeway network with merge-diverge interactions. The results demonstrate that the proposed controller generates more spatially coordinated speed limits, which effectively reduce travel time spent and provide environmental benefits.