Optimal Vehicle Control to Improve Traffic Flow at Railway Level Crossings

Railway level crossing often exhibits long queues and spillbacks due to the temporary closure of the railroad gate or when many vehicles arrive simultaneously. Existing research deals with traffic congestion issues at level crossings through architectural upgrades, traffic signal control, and other safety analysis. We propose an optimal vehicle control method to address the problem without infrastructure changes. Specifically, we plan vehicles' optimal trajectory to arrive from a suitable distance to smoothly reach and stop at the railway crossing at a designed time to reduce queuing and idling at the level crossing stop line. An extended data-driven model is used to predict the natural arrival timing at the crossing line, which is used as the prediction horizon of the optimal vehicle control problem, ensuring a safe gap with the preceding vehicle. Our optimal control method can prioritize safety constraints, showing improved fuel efficiency and reduced idling and traffic spillovers at our chosen study area compared to traditional driving methods in existing scenarios.