An Innovative Eigenvector-Based Method for Traffic Light Scheduling

This paper introduces two traffic light strategies to control traffic and avoid traffic jam in urban networks. One strategy is a new traffic light scheduling system, which controls traffic light using local variables (waiting time and number of vehicle on links) but has a global impact on the traffic, using shared variables between neighbour intersections. The proposed traffic light scheduling system is designed based on eigenvector centrality of intersection relation matrix. The intersection relation matrix is a new representation of a junction which indicates the traffic relation between intersection’s links and adjacent intersections. The second contribution is expanding a new dual mode traffic light strategy (namely, Exit Status Traffic Light (ETL)), which notifies the drivers whether they are allowed to exit a street or not. In other words, vehicles are allowed to enter a street in both red and green ETL, but they are not allowed to exit the street for a long time in red ETL (while traffic is heavy in the subnetwork). The ETL gives a chance to relax traffic in a subnetwork and avoid traffic jam. The effectiveness of the proposed strategy is analysed and evaluated by a number of simulations on three-way grid networks. Two-way rectangular grid networks are modelled via a cell transmission model (CTM). The macroscopic fundamental diagram (MFD) and the number of jammed cells are compared with two state-of-the-art methods.