Passenger number dependent traffic control in signalized intersections

Abstract

The paper investigates a novel approach to the traffic control problem of signalized junction with bus priority. In road traffic engineering practice, adaptive control algorithms are generally used for maximizing the traffic flow of intersections. The adaptive strategies aim to calculate optimal signal splits for the traffic lights. The calculation is usually based on the number of vehicles measured by appropriate detection methods and may also depend on public transport priority actions (e.g. “green call” by buses). The main drawback of these methods is that the number of vehicle passengers is not taken into consideration. Unlike the common approaches the presented control strategy considers weighted passenger number exclusively (by using the assumption that the number of passengers can be measured in all vehicles). Hence, the control aim is to maximize the number of weighted passenger number capable to cross the intersection. The proposed control method is based on two factors: the number of passengers in road vehicles and their temporal distance measured from the stop line. The strategy does not apply priority measures for public transport directly. At the same time, the vehicles carrying numerous passengers (i.e. buses) acquire preference.