Multi-scale modelling and simulation of ITS applications for energy optimisation in road traffic and transport systems

The main focus of this work is on a motorway application, intended at traffic flow optimisation in terms of throughput and energy consumptions. Motorways can be considered as the backbone of the transportation system of a Region or a Country, they are capable to ensure high throughput under standard traffic conditions, but they tend to become unstable in case of bottlenecks generated by unexpected accidents or unsustainable traffic demand. The time and energy loss in these circumstances can be very relevant if compared with the total energy and time taken by the travellers to complete their trip. After some initial considerations related to the ITS concept and the reasons behind the choice of this specific matter to study (Section 1), the work begins with an overview of existing traffic monitoring and control technologies (Section 2). Particularly focusing on the monitoring needs of ITS, this first part develops some filtering tools intended to adjust measurements from real traffic monitoring systems. The central part of the thesis (Sections 3, 4, and 5) deals with the modelling aspects, with particular reference to motorway applications and to the developments needed to address energy consumption reduction in congested traffic flows. To conclude, Section 7 presents some complementary applications, in which the same concepts are applied to different scenarios, belonging to the urban and inter-urban domain.