This paper describes the HERMES project of the European Community's DRIVE II programme, which started in January 1992 and was due to finish in December 1994. It aims to increase traffic safety and efficiency by: (1) improving knowledge of the current state of traffic in a given road network; and (2) applying control strategies that are based on this knowledge. It concentrates on enhancing and applying traffic control strategies, that are based on on-line origin-destination (OD) information and automatic incident detection in and between cities. It builds on and validates algorithms, that were previously developed in the DRIVE I projects ODIN and MONICA. In the area of rerouteing, HERMES concentrates on: (1) incorporating HERMES concentrates on: (1) incorporating OD information as a basis for rerouteing decisions; (2) rerouteing on multiple alternative routes; (3) balance between user and system optima of the objective function; and (4) using off-line traffic prediction. The SIMONE simulation programme is helping HERMES simulation studies on an artificial motorway topology, to develop the optimal strategy concept. The largest part of HERMES is the development of its on-line network signal control system MOTION, extending work done under DRIVE I.
Abstract