Citation

Qi LI, Zhou MC, Luan WJ. IEEE Trans. Intel. Transp. Syst. 2018; 19(1): 13-24.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers))

DOI

10.1109/TITS.2016.2625324

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This work designs a two-level strategy at signalized intersections for preventing incident-based urban traffic congestion by adopting additional traffic warning lights. The first-level one is a ban signal strategy that is used to stop the traffic flow driving toward some directions, and the second-level one is a warning signal strategy that gives traffic flow a recommendation of not driving to some directions. As a visual and mathematical formalism for modeling discrete-event dynamic systems, timed Petri nets are utilized to describe the cooperation between traffic lights and warning lights, and then verify their correctness. A two-way rectangular grid network is modeled via a cell transmission model. The effectiveness of the proposed two-level strategy is evaluated through simulations in the grid network. The results reveal the influences of some major parameters, such as the route-changing rates of vehicles, operation time interval of the proposed strategy, and traffic density of the traffic network on a congestion dissipation process. The results can be used to improve the state of the art in preventing urban road traffic congestion caused by incidents.

Language: en

Keywords

additional traffic warning lights; ban signal strategy; cell transmission model; cell transmission model (CTM); congestion dissipation process; congestion formation and dissipation; discrete event system; discrete event systems; discrete-event dynamic systems; emergency strategy; incident-based urban traffic congestion prevention; lighting control; mathematical formalism; Mathematical model; Petri nets; Real-time systems; road traffic control; Roads; signalized intersections; Timed Petri net (TPN); timed Petri nets; traffic density; traffic engineering computing; traffic flow; traffic incident; traffic light control; traffic lights; traffic network; two-level traffic light control strategy; two-way rectangular grid network; Urban areas; urban road traffic congestion; Vehicles; visual formalism; warning signal strategy