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Self-organizing traffic lights: A realistic simulation

arxiv.org — In this paper, we extend these results to a realistic setting, implementing self-organizing traffic lights in an advanced traffic simulator using real data from a Brussels avenue. On average, for different traffic densities, travel waiting times are reduced by 50% compared to the current green wave method.

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  • The_Wallbanger, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16Intelligent traffic signals seem like a good idea until they become self-aware and revolt alongside the rest of the robots. Soon enough they'll be killing off senior citizens in cross traffic with an accelerated sequence of WALK and DON'T WALK. You can count on it.
    • cbbspike, on 10/12/2007, -8/+13I for one welcome our robot overlords.
    • spinomatic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I can't tell you the number of times I have sat at a red light with no cross-traffic in view grumbling and mumbling about 'ignorant traffic lights' , or wondered why the lights can't be made to adjust their timing to deal with the directional nature of rush-hour. I too would welcome robot overlords
    • vandread, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3I will welcome our robot overlords, but only if I can be a Adrien Barbo-bot with the strength of 5 gorillas.
    • webcrumb, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Oh, you Python lover you.
  • richste, on 10/12/2007, -13/+1i thought there was going to be a video or something...lol just lots of text :(
    • spinomatic, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2Give 'em a break, man - notice their nationality. You are probably experiencing persons writing in English (as a second language) using the construction patterns of their native language. For example, that's why a French native who is using English will refer to a ship as a "she", i.e., because in French, unlike in English, inanimate objects have gender.
    • pkulak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4haha, did you mean to reply to me?
    • drgruney, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@spinomatic. If a French person called a ship a she they would still be correct. It is a long time tradition to refer to ships as female. Now if they called a stapler a she that would just be silly.
    • Cameleopard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@drgruney
      As it happens, stapler is feminine in French (une agrafeuse). So, one could say:
      Où est ma Redline Swinger? Donnez elle à moi!
      Where is my Redline Swinger? Giver her to me!
  • pkulak, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3What is with this guy and putting the adverb after the verb? It's annoying as hell to read:

    "finding mathematically the apropriate phases"

    "traffice lights can improve greatly traffic flow"
    • pkulak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2My mistake, he's probably a native Dutch speaker, or this is a translation.
    • irregardless, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Grammar fairy says that the sentence is still constructed validly.
    • TheCheeta, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Sweet! Yoda is running the Intelligent Traffic Light Program. It'll use the Force for sure!
  • 8bit_Hero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Link is not ADD friendly.
    • pkulak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I thought it was a pretty easy read as far as papers go. It's a pretty simple concept: turn a light green only after a certain amount of cars have built up behind it or are aproaching it, with some rules to handle border cases.
    • fredricko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree with pkulak. A simple and efficient model. It would also be very easy to implement something like this considering we already have traffic lights that take a picture of your license plate if you go through a red light. (i.e. The traffic light can figure out where your car is).
  • JulianMorrison, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'd be worried the models would have feedback oscillations. Mathematical comp sci people, is there any way to formally prove this won't happen?
  • mflux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Not entirely the same, but this Java app demonstrates a similar idea using agents and collision detection / avoidance to do a traffic intersection. This is how it would look.

    http://www.red3d.com/cwr/steer/Unaligned.html

    It's an old Craig Reynolds work. You need java to view it.
  • Lord_oftheTrons, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5PDF warning.
  • TGKnIght, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Ugh, where are my pictures and diagrams... Why must I READ!?!!?
  • BrandNewDigger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2We already use a semi-intelligent system for traffic lights in my suburb in IL. One of the village engineers was explaining the traffic light system to me a few months ago and said that each intersection has two different kind of sensors in certain lanes, and this data gets fed to the "computer" located at each intersection. All of these "computers" send their data to the main computer at the village hall and depending on where heavy traffic is, they extend green lights on certain streets, etc, all automatically. It's pretty cool, but could still definitely improve a lot.
  • lilxvietxboi, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0So, if one car were to get stopped at an intersection, it would just stay red even though its in the middle of the night and he is the only car on the road waiting for the "pack" to come.
    • cgershen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@lilxvietxboi
      No, it would only take a bit more time to reach the threshold... but in principle you could vary the threshold according to the traffic density, so that you need less cars to switch green lights when there's low density and vice versa.
  • deuces, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1They already impliment stuff like this where I am from in Edmonton, Alberta. There are sensors all over the place and traffic usually flows quite well. Most turning lights are only activated by a sensor so they don't come on if nobody is there. You almost never have to stop at a red light for cross traffic that isn't there.

    Go Canada!
  • krazikamikaze, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The lights on an expressway I use all the time do "the green wave" during rush hour traffic. The problem is you need to be going 65 to "ride the wave," and the speed limit is 45.
  • omaryak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1A "realistic" simulation? Where are the pictures?
  • zebthepilot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Most of your "smart" traffic lights in the US/Canada are traffic aware but only for traffic at their intersection. You usually won't get red lights for ghost cars and this does help a lot but these smart lights aren't smart enough (in most places) to talk to each other and coordinate traffic.

    Basically what this paper was talking about is creating a mesh network of sorts in the traffic light world so that each light can communicate with it's neighboring light and coordinate traffic.

    The green wave is mostly dumb lights that always have traffic. But in this case they are aiming to create the math behind smart lights so they can communicate and create a green wave that has varying size, speed and direction to accommodate different traffic patterns.

    While their method and idea is simple, it seems to work.
    • cgershen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@zebthepilot:
      Actually there is no direct communication between traffic lights. However, they "pass" information via the platoons themselves... you can find more details in
      Gershenson, C. (2005). Self-Organizing Traffic Lights. Complex Systems 16(1): 29-53.
      [preprint at http://uk.arxiv.org/abs/nlin.AO/0411066 ]
  • LeeTXJD, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1To quote from their conclusion: "However, we would not like to motivate even more the use of cars with an efficient traffic control, since this would increase even more traffic densities and pollution."

    What's this crap. Typically European. And its not science, but politics. Its always best to introduce efficiencies. In this case it means travelers get to where they are going faster and therefore pollute less (as their car won't be running).

    I wonder if the authors believed they had to be PC because of the affiliation with a University. Are these students and is this for a grade? Then possibly the answer is yes.

    • cgershen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"The road to hell is paved with good intentions"

      If you make it easy for people to drive their cars, they will. If it sucks, they won't... an example can be seen in central London. They charge nowadays I believe 8 quid to enter the centre for a day... the last time I was there I saw like ten times more bikers... AND, the people who are lazy and rich and pay, don't have to deal with such a heavy traffic...

      btw, I'm Mexican, so I wouldn't call myself "typically European"...
  • leatherscot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I cant believe that they base a study on driver's in Brussels!!! The people that drive in this city, well, basically - cant! Nearly as bad as Paris!
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