Arterial traffic-control systems

The objective of a traffic-adjusted arterial control system is to minimize travel time along the artery. Such traffic characteristics as volume, road occupancy, or vehicle speed are sensed for both outbound and inbound traffic. These data lead to the selection of a pre-computed strategic plan of the system cycle length, offsets, and splits which matches the current demand and trend of traffic, possibly for a period of 10 min, at the end of which another strategic selection will be made. Arterial control forms the basis of multi-intersection signal-control systems. The implementation of arterial traffic-control systems will be described with strong emphasis on hardware aspects.