Traffic Light Control

Hoàng Hải
Lưu Như Hòa
Department of Automatic Control
Hanoi University of Technology

11/19/08 1
Overview
The problem of transport system is an optimal problem control
Main Goals are:

 Improving safety
 Minimizing travel time
 Increasing the capacity
of infrastructures

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Outline

 Section 1: How traffic can be modeled,

predicted and controlled ?
 Section 2: What a traffic light control system
contain ?
 Section 3: New approaches to traffic light
control !!!

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 Modeling and
Controlling Traffic

Section 1

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Modeling and Controlling
Traffic
How traffic can be modeled ?

 Macroscopic scale:  Microscopic scale:

Similar to models of each vehicle is
fluid dynamics considered as an
 PDE individual
 ODE

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Macroscopic models
 Macroscopic models
based on fluid
dynamics model
 Relation between:
traffic flux, traffic
density and velocity.

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 Macroscopic models

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Macroscopic models
Basic Statements
 The more vehicles are on a
road, the slower their velocity  Road Capability, Speed Limit
will be
 The number of vehicles
entering the control zone has
to be smaller or equal to the
number of vehicles leaving
the zone in the same time
 At a critical traffic density and
a corresponding critical
velocity the state of flow will
 not simulate directly certain
change from stable to driver behaviors
unstable.
 If one of the vehicles brakes
in unstable flow regime the
flow will collapse

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Microscopic models
 In contrast to
macroscopic models,
microscopic models
focus on vehicles
(position and velocity )
Stephen Wolfram
 Cellular automaton Creator of CA
(CA): discrete model
 Road Δx
 Time steps Δt
 Nagel-Schreckenberg
model

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 Microscopic models
Road Cell

If next state is available Then Move

Rule 18410  101110002 forwards
Else Stop

current pattern 111 110 101 100 011 010 001 000
new state for
center cell 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0

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Microscopic models

 Self-caused slowdown:

 Stable "stop-waves“

 Two stable states

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Microscopic models

 Cognitive Multi-Agent Systems (CMAS):

Agents interact and communicate with each
other and the infrastructure
 receives information from the environment using
its sensors
 believes certain things about its environment
 uses these beliefs and inputs to select an action
 using learning capabilities to optimize agent

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Microscopic models

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Microscopic models

Dia (2002) use CMAS in traffic

problem.
But no result were presented!!!

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Predicting Traffic

 Measuring traffic over a certain time,

assuming that conditions will be the same for
the next period
 Ledoux(1996) used neural networks perform
long-term prediction of the queue length at a
traffic light

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Vehicle Control
 Get information through
dynamic road signs, radio,
or even on-board
navigation systems
 Traffic flow increase if
all drivers drive at the
same (maximum)
speed. (But …)
 Learned strategies
better than hand-
crafted controllers

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 Traffic Light Control
System

Section 2

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Traffic Light Control System
 Distributed System
 A set of intersections
 A set of connection
(roads)
 Traffic lights regulating
 Traffic lights are
controlled independently

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Traffic Control and Command
Centre
In Thailand

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Traffic Light Control System
 No obvious optimal
solution
 In practice most traffic
lights are controlled by
fixed-cycle controllers
 Fixed controllers need
manual changes to
adapted specific
situation

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Green Waves

 Offset of cycle can be adjusted to create

green waves.

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Driver Detector - Sonar
Sensor

•Few drivers
•Unusual

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Driver Detector - Camera

 Identification image
 Expensive
 Complex Traffic System

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Driver Detector - Loop Detector
•Measure Inductive
•Most popular
•Cheap

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Traffic Light Control System

What does it do ?

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Let’s See! N

S
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 N

No turning

 W


S
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Binary N
traffic
lights

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S 29
 Safety N
Property

This should not

happen

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S 30
 Safety N
Propert
y

This should not

happen

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S 31
Livenes N
s
Propert
y

Traffic in
Thank God!
each
direction
must be S
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 Finite State Machine

 The Problem is Synchronous

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Finite State Machine

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 Control Algorithms

Section 3

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Expert Systems
 uses a set of given rules to Can Machines Think?
decide upon the next action
(change some of the control
parameters)
 Findler,Stapp,1992 describe
a network of roads
connected by traffic light-
based expert systems
 improve performance but
much computation

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Evolutionary Algorithms
 Taaleetal,1998 using
evolutionary algorithms to
evolve a traffic light controller
for a single intersection
 Result:
 Generates green times for next
switching schedule.
 Minimization of total delay /
number of stops.
 Better results (3 – 5%) / higher
flexibility than with traditional
controllers.
 Dynamic optimization,
depending on actual traffic
(measured by control loops).

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Fuzzy Logic
 Passed through 31% more
cars
 Average waiting time
shorter by 5%
 Performance also measure
72% higher.
 In comparison with a human
expert the fuzzy controller
passed through 14% more
cars with 14% shorter
waiting time and 36% higher
performance index

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Reinforcement Learning
 Reinforcement learning is
a branch of machine
learning concerned with
how an agent ought to take
actions in an environment
so as to maximize some
notion of long-term reward
 Thorpe used a neural
network for the traffic-light
based value function which
predicts the waiting time for
all cars standing at the
junction

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Intelligent Agents

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References

 http://en.wikipedia.org
 [Wiering] Intelligent Traffic Light Control
 [Tan Kok Khiang] Intelligent Traffic Lights
Control by Fuzzy Logic

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