Towards distributed online cooperative traffic signal control using the cell transmission model

Traffic signal control is a key ingredient in intelligent transportation systems (ITS) to increase the capacity of existing urban transportation infrastructure. However, to achieve optimal system-wide operation it is essential to coordinate traffic signals at various intersections. In this paper we model the multiple-intersections traffic signal control problem using the cell transmission model. For its solution, we propose two online distributed strategies, which are based on spatially and temporally decomposing the problem into subproblems associated with different intersections and iteratively solving them by exchanging information between neighboring intersections. Simulation results for a four intersection topology indicate that the proposed strategies achieve distributed, online and close to optimal signal timing plans.