Micro-Auction-Based Traffic-Light Control: Responsive, Local Decision Making

Real-time, responsive optimization of traffic flow serves to address important practical problems: reducing drivers' wasted time and improving city-wide efficiency, as well as reducing gas emissions and improving air quality. Much of the current research in traffic-light optimization relies on extending the capabilities of basic traffic lights to either communicate with each other or communicate with vehicles. However, before such capabilities become ubiquitous, opportunities exist to improve traffic lights by being more responsive to current traffic situations within the existing, deployed, infrastructure. In this paper, the authors use micro-auctions as the organizing principle with which to incorporate local induction loop information, no other outside sources of information are assumed. At every time step in which a phase change is permitted, each light conducts a decentralized, weighted, micro-auction to determine which phase is instantiated next. The authors test the lights on real-world data collected over a period of several weeks around the Mountain View, California area. In the authors' simulations, the auction mechanisms based only on local sensor data surpass longer-term planning approaches that rely on widely placed sensors and communications.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.1109/ITSC.2015.98
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/9781467365956
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Abstract reprinted with permission of IEEE.
• Corporate Authors:

  Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

  3 Park Avenue, 17th Floor
  New York, NY  United States  10016-5997
• Authors:
  • Covell, Michele
  • Baluja, Shumeet
  • Sukthankar, Rahul
• Conference:
  • 18th International IEEE Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC)
  • Location: Canary Islands , Spain
  • Date: 2015-9-15 to 2015-9-18
• Publication Date: 2015

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: References;
• Pagination: pp 558-565
• Monograph Title: 18th International IEEE Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC 2015)

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Loop detectors; Optimization; Traffic signal timing
• Geographic Terms: Mountain View (California)
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01603001
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 9781467365956
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: May 2 2016 3:18PM