MIT System Puts Citywide Traffic Light b4in.org/q5eJ Traffic can be the bane of a modern urban lifestyle and cities have used computer algorithms to time a single traffic light or a collection of lights in the most efficient way possible. Now, a team of researchers from MIT has devised a system that times traffic on a citywide scale, according to an upcoming report in the journal Transportation Science. “Usually in practice, when you want to time traffic lights, traditionally it’s been done in a local way,” said study author Carolina Osorio, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT. “You define one intersection, or maybe a set of intersections along an arterial, and you fine-tune or optimize the traffic lights there.” The new system was based on a traffic study of Lausanne, Switzerland – a city of over 120,000 on the shores of Lake Geneva. “What is less done, and is more difficult to do, is when you look at a broader scale, in this case the city of Lausanne, and you want to change signal times at intersections distributed across the entire city, with the objective of trying to improve conditions across the entire city,” Osorio added. A citywide system is more difficult because a shift at one intersection can create ripples across the surrounding region, or variations in driver behavior after changes in traffic-light patterns. For instance, if wait times on a selected route rise, drivers may seek other ways known to have fewer red lights. The new system can time lights in large city areas whilst accounting for the complex and diverse responses of specific drivers. The team’s approach utilizes high-resolution simulators that describe the detailed behavior of drivers in reaction to variations in travel conditions. More b4in.org/q5eJ
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 00:04:48 +0000
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