Ant pheromone route guidance strategy in intelligent transportation systems.

Abstract Based on the cellular automaton model and the concept of ant pheromone, this paper proposes a new route guidance strategy, called the ant pheromone route guidance strategy, in which the vehicles are regarded as special types of ants and their traffic information is regarded as the ant pheromone. To evaluate its performance, the new route guidance strategy was applied and compared with other three typical route guidance strategies under three different route scenarios, respectively, with open boundary conditions based on the Nagel–Schreckenberg cellular automaton model. First, in a symmetrical two-route scenario with two exits, results showed that the new route guidance strategy and vacancy length route guidance strategy were optimal. They outperformed the other strategies in terms of the value, stability, and balance of vehicle number, and the average speed and average flux on each route. To understand the impact of the strategy on traffic states, flux–density evolution process was studied. In addition, the influence of evaporation rate was also investigated. Second, in an asymmetrical two-route scenario with one exit, the simulation results also proved that ant pheromone route guidance strategy and vacancy length route guidance strategy were the best. Finally, in a symmetrical two-route scenario with a traffic accident, we compared the new route guidance strategy with the vacancy length route guidance strategy. Results indicated that the new route guidance strategy has distinct advantages. In short, in all three route scenarios we investigated, the ant pheromone route guidance strategy performed best. Highlights • This paper proposes the ant pheromone route guidance strategy based on CA model. • The new strategy takes vehicles as ants and vehicles' data as ant pheromones. • Adopting the NS model, this strategy is applied to three two-route scenarios. • Results indicate that the new strategy outperforms other route guidance strategies. • In traffic accident, the new strategy can reduce congestion and save recovery time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]