The AMOC software was developed in the DACCORD project in the aim of determining co-ordinated and integrated control strategies for arbitrary motorway networks. In the DACCORD framework, the term co-ordinated control is used in order to indicate control strategies that take under consideration several control measures of the same kind. For example, if in a given motorway network a number of geographically distributed ramp-metering installations is used for traffic control purposes, then a single (unique) control strategy which considers the synergistic effect of all ramp-meters, either on a network-wide level or on link level, is called a co-ordinated ramp-metering control strategy. On the other hand, the term integration is reserved for the situations where control measures of different kinds are employed for traffic control purposes. An example of integrated control would be the concurrent consideration of Variable Message Signs (VMS) with ramp-metering signals towards a common objective. The main goal of both co-ordinated and integrated control strategies is to make the individual control measures, of the same kind or not, not to be behave antagonistically, but to co-operate towards a predetermined common objective.

(a)

(b)

Traffic density in the Amsterdam ring-road: a) No control, b) Optimal ramp metering with AMOC.
(click to enlarge)