Control strategies for sustainable mobility in freeways

Sustainability is nowadays a key issue for the development of strategies and policies in the context of mobility and transportation. In order to achieve a sustainable mobility system, by taking care of the needs of present and future generations, control strategies must take into account sustainability-related issues in an explicit manner. This means that the control methods developed nowadays must have the objectives not only of decreasing travel delays experienced by drivers in the traffic system but also of reducing emissions of pollutants, fuel consumptions, accidents, noise and so on. To this end, multi-class models and multi-class traffic control strategies are needed as well. If a multi-class model allows to capture the real dynamics of the traffic system in a more realistic way, multi-class traffic control strategies permit to regulate separately the flows of different vehicle classes, and this enables, for instance, the definition of particular policies for cars, different from those dedicated to trucks, according to specific plans defined by local authorities or traffic managers.