Distributed Games in Traffic Ramp Metering Carlos Canudas de Wit GIPSA Lab This lecture includes several aspects of modeling and control of traffic systems. We first review some control proprties of flow-conservation models. In particular we underline fundamental properties like downstream/upstream controllability and observability. Then we study the problem of distributed optimal balancing of vehicle density in the freeway traffic which is based on the controllability properties. By using such properties, we identify the subsystems to be controlled by local ramp meters. The optimization problem is then formulated as a non-cooperative Nash game that is solved by decomposing it into a set of two-players hierarchical and competitive games. The process of optimization employs the communication channels matching the switching structure of system interconnectivity. By defining the internal model for the boundary flows, local optimal control problems are efficiently solved and can be generalized to any freeway dimension without jeopardize the computational capabilities of the algorithm. The developed control strategy is tested via microscopic simulators. The talk is based on the recent paper. Pisarski, D. ; Canudas-de-Wit, C. “Nash Game Based Distributed Control Design for Balancing of Traffic Density over Freeway Networks”, Control of Network Systems, IEEE Transactions on (Volume:PP , Issue: 99 ), May 2015.