MARVEL: Multi-Agent Reinforcement-Learning for Large-Scale Variable Speed Limits

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhang, Yuhang, Quinones-Grueiro, Marcos, Zhang, Zhiyao, Wang, Yanbing, Barbour, William, Biswas, Gautam, Work, Daniel
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Zhang, Yuhang
Quinones-Grueiro, Marcos
Zhang, Zhiyao
Wang, Yanbing
Barbour, William
Biswas, Gautam
Work, Daniel
author_facet Zhang, Yuhang
Quinones-Grueiro, Marcos
Zhang, Zhiyao
Wang, Yanbing
Barbour, William
Biswas, Gautam
Work, Daniel
contents Variable Speed Limit (VSL) control acts as a promising highway traffic management strategy with worldwide deployment, which can enhance traffic safety by dynamically adjusting speed limits according to real-time traffic conditions. Most of the deployed VSL control algorithms so far are rule-based, lacking generalizability under varying and complex traffic scenarios. In this work, we propose MARVEL (Multi-Agent Reinforcement-learning for large-scale Variable spEed Limits), a novel framework for large-scale VSL control on highway corridors with real-world deployment settings. MARVEL utilizes only sensing information observable in the real world as state input and learns through a reward structure that incorporates adaptability to traffic conditions, safety, and mobility, thereby enabling multi-agent coordination. With parameter sharing among all VSL agents, the proposed framework scales to cover corridors with many agents. The policies are trained in a microscopic traffic simulation environment, focusing on a short freeway stretch with 8 VSL agents spanning 7 miles. For testing, these policies are applied to a more extensive network with 34 VSL agents spanning 17 miles of I-24 near Nashville, TN, USA. MARVEL-based method improves traffic safety by 63.4% compared to the no control scenario and enhances traffic mobility by 58.6% compared to a state-of-the-practice algorithm that has been deployed on I-24. Besides, we conduct an explainability analysis to examine the decision-making process of the agents and explore the learned policy under different traffic conditions. Finally, we test the response of the policy learned from the simulation-based experiments with real-world data collected from I-24 and illustrate its deployment capability.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2310_12359
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle MARVEL: Multi-Agent Reinforcement-Learning for Large-Scale Variable Speed Limits
Zhang, Yuhang
Quinones-Grueiro, Marcos
Zhang, Zhiyao
Wang, Yanbing
Barbour, William
Biswas, Gautam
Work, Daniel
Multiagent Systems
Machine Learning
Variable Speed Limit (VSL) control acts as a promising highway traffic management strategy with worldwide deployment, which can enhance traffic safety by dynamically adjusting speed limits according to real-time traffic conditions. Most of the deployed VSL control algorithms so far are rule-based, lacking generalizability under varying and complex traffic scenarios. In this work, we propose MARVEL (Multi-Agent Reinforcement-learning for large-scale Variable spEed Limits), a novel framework for large-scale VSL control on highway corridors with real-world deployment settings. MARVEL utilizes only sensing information observable in the real world as state input and learns through a reward structure that incorporates adaptability to traffic conditions, safety, and mobility, thereby enabling multi-agent coordination. With parameter sharing among all VSL agents, the proposed framework scales to cover corridors with many agents. The policies are trained in a microscopic traffic simulation environment, focusing on a short freeway stretch with 8 VSL agents spanning 7 miles. For testing, these policies are applied to a more extensive network with 34 VSL agents spanning 17 miles of I-24 near Nashville, TN, USA. MARVEL-based method improves traffic safety by 63.4% compared to the no control scenario and enhances traffic mobility by 58.6% compared to a state-of-the-practice algorithm that has been deployed on I-24. Besides, we conduct an explainability analysis to examine the decision-making process of the agents and explore the learned policy under different traffic conditions. Finally, we test the response of the policy learned from the simulation-based experiments with real-world data collected from I-24 and illustrate its deployment capability.
title MARVEL: Multi-Agent Reinforcement-Learning for Large-Scale Variable Speed Limits
topic Multiagent Systems
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.12359