| Contingency Traffic Scheduling |
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Organization responsible: Thales Research & Technology UK (TRT-UK) People involved:
Project description: This project uses the traffic light control optimiser developed by TRT (UK) in 2003 as the basis for an autonomous network of agents that can rapidly discover a near-optimal traffic schedule under contingency conditions. Such situations include the closure of roads or intersections due to accidents or planned events. The approach is based on the premise that current traffic control algorithms are typically heuristic and can only cope well with moderate traffic loading. Under the saturation conditions that typically exist in emergency situations a fixed schedule should produce a higher total throughput. Extensions will be made to the simulator to include support for multi-lane roads and adaptive intersections. These extensions will also allow the traffic light control optimiser to evolve into a general exploratory tool for road intersection design by including many features of modern road systems that were not included in the original demonstrator. Of particular interest are intersections that can dynamically alter lane allocations according to traffic flow, and priority lanes for buses or preferential service as part of road-user charging schemes. Publications:
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