Eco-Friendly Freight Signal Priority using connected vehicle technology: A multi-agent systems approach

This paper introduces a multi-agent systems (MAS) based freight signal priority algorithm with the stated goal of reducing network-wide energy and emissions. The proposed infrastructure and communication protocol is highly flexible in that it can be applied to multiple measures of effectiveness (MOEs) such as energy, emissions, travel delay, or any combination. Furthermore, the adaptive nature of the optimized signal control ensures extension to multiple arterial intersections. The proposed algorithm has been implemented and evaluated on an isolated intersection in the microscopic simulation environment. The results indicate that the application of the proposed Eco-Friendly Freight Signal Priority algorithm improves upon traditional traffic signal priority by providing fuel and travel time savings to both freight and non-freight traffic.