Real-World Deployment and Assessment of a Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning-Based Variable Speed Limit Control System

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Zhang, Yuhang, Zhang, Zhiyao, Ji, Junyi, Quiñones-Grueiro, Marcos, Barbour, William, Gloudemans, Derek, Zachár, Gergely, Weston, Clay, Biswas, Gautam, Work, Daniel B.
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Zhang, Yuhang
Zhang, Zhiyao
Ji, Junyi
Quiñones-Grueiro, Marcos
Barbour, William
Gloudemans, Derek
Zachár, Gergely
Weston, Clay
Biswas, Gautam
Work, Daniel B.
author_facet Zhang, Yuhang
Zhang, Zhiyao
Ji, Junyi
Quiñones-Grueiro, Marcos
Barbour, William
Gloudemans, Derek
Zachár, Gergely
Weston, Clay
Biswas, Gautam
Work, Daniel B.
contents This article presents the first field deployment of a multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) based variable speed limit (VSL) control system on Interstate 24 (I-24) near Nashville, Tennessee. We design and demonstrate a full pipeline from training MARL agents in a traffic simulator to a field deployment on a 17-mile segment of I-24 encompassing 67 VSL controllers. The system was launched on March 8th, 2024, and has made approximately 35 million decisions on 28 million trips in six months of operation. We apply an invalid action masking mechanism and several safety guards to ensure real-world constraints. The MARL-based implementation operates up to 98% of the time, with the safety guards overriding the MARL decisions for the remaining time. We evaluate the performance of the MARL-based algorithm in comparison to a previously deployed non-RL VSL benchmark algorithm on I-24. Results show that the MARL-based VSL control system achieves a superior performance. The accuracy of correctly warning drivers about slowing traffic ahead is improved by 14% and the response delay to non-recurrent congestion is reduced by 75%. The preliminary data shows that the VSL control system has reduced the crash rate by 26% and the secondary crash rate by 50%. We open-sourced the deployed MARL-based VSL algorithm at https://github.com/Lab-Work/marl-vsl-controller.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_01017
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Real-World Deployment and Assessment of a Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning-Based Variable Speed Limit Control System
Zhang, Yuhang
Zhang, Zhiyao
Ji, Junyi
Quiñones-Grueiro, Marcos
Barbour, William
Gloudemans, Derek
Zachár, Gergely
Weston, Clay
Biswas, Gautam
Work, Daniel B.
Systems and Control
This article presents the first field deployment of a multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) based variable speed limit (VSL) control system on Interstate 24 (I-24) near Nashville, Tennessee. We design and demonstrate a full pipeline from training MARL agents in a traffic simulator to a field deployment on a 17-mile segment of I-24 encompassing 67 VSL controllers. The system was launched on March 8th, 2024, and has made approximately 35 million decisions on 28 million trips in six months of operation. We apply an invalid action masking mechanism and several safety guards to ensure real-world constraints. The MARL-based implementation operates up to 98% of the time, with the safety guards overriding the MARL decisions for the remaining time. We evaluate the performance of the MARL-based algorithm in comparison to a previously deployed non-RL VSL benchmark algorithm on I-24. Results show that the MARL-based VSL control system achieves a superior performance. The accuracy of correctly warning drivers about slowing traffic ahead is improved by 14% and the response delay to non-recurrent congestion is reduced by 75%. The preliminary data shows that the VSL control system has reduced the crash rate by 26% and the secondary crash rate by 50%. We open-sourced the deployed MARL-based VSL algorithm at https://github.com/Lab-Work/marl-vsl-controller.
title Real-World Deployment and Assessment of a Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning-Based Variable Speed Limit Control System
topic Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.01017