What is CIRCLES?

Traffic jams and pollution? We help both with AI.

The Congestion Impacts Reduction via CAV-in-the-loop Lagrangian Energy Smoothing (CIRCLES) project aims to reduce instabilities in traffic flow, called "phantom jams," that cause congestion and wasted energy. If you have ever encountered a temporary traffic jam for no apparent reason, this might have been a phantom jam that occurred naturally because of human driving behavior.

Prior work on closed-course testing demonstrated that phantom jams can be reduced using autonomous vehicle technologies and specially-designed algorithms. The CIRCLES project seeks to extend this technology to real-world traffic, where reducing these negative traffic effects could provide ≥10% energy savings.

Research Plan

Demonstrate traffic flow and energy savings in the real world.

The ambitious goals of the CIRCLES project will be achieved through a combination of computational development, vehicle technology deployment, and highway infrastructure construction. Novel research is being conducted in all of these areas by an interdisciplinary team across the United States.

Specific major research tasks include:
(1) Develop high-fidelity simulation tools that exhibit realistic traffic instabilities.
(2) Discover new techniques in multi-agent reinforcement learning.
(3) Develop control algorithms to transfer reinforcement learning policies to connected and autonomous vehicles.
(4) Develop, calibrate, and validate energy models for vehicles.
(5) Combine vehicle sensing, control, and communication technologies for traffic flow experiments.
(6) Build highway sensing infrastructure to measure traffic flow impacts by observing the position of every vehicle on the road.

CIRCLES is led by UC Berkeley and the Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) Berkeley, in coordination with Vanderbilt University, Temple University, Rutgers University-Camden, the Tennessee Department of Transportation, Toyota North America, and Nissan North America. The project is backed primarily by DOE and NSF funding. It will also provide the opportunity for engagement with major automotive partners and federal agencies (e.g., DOE, DOT).

Alexandre Bayen, ITS Director and Liao-Cho Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, UC Berkeley

Maria Laura Delle Monache, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, UC Berkeley

Jonathan Lee, Senior Engineering Manager & Project Coordinator, Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, UC Berkeley

Benedetto Piccoli, Vice Chancellor for Research and Joseph and Loretta Lopez Chair Professor, Department of Mathematical Sciences, Rutgers University-Camden

Benjamin Seibold, Professor, Department of Mathematics, Temple University

Jonathan Sprinkle, Professor, Department of Computer Science, Vanderbilt University

Daniel Work, Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Vanderbilt University