Real-time traffic signal control for maximizing network throughput

Abstract

To develop an actuated traffic-signal-control method that has ability to efficiently manage traffic, especially oversaturation, by considering not only present situation in only small area but also considering the effect to the whole network in nearly future and to compare effectiveness with some other methods. This method focuses on maximizing overall throughput of the system. The scope of study covers two parts which are developing and testing the method in some different levels of traffic. The method is developed and it is tested on a computer-simulated corridor with four intersections compared to fixed-time method with and without prevention of green-time loss. The tool used in the test is a micro-simulation program, named Paramics. The results, which are number of vehicles containing in the system, average green time given to each link during a peak hour, destination arrival, real-time throughput, real-time average speed in the system, total travel time, and peak throughput, are statistically considered. The results show that the method really gives very high total throughput to the system in the condition of having oversaturated demand. It also works well with the saturated one but this method works inefficiently for the case of having too low demand that is considered to be less than theoretical capacity of the system.