Dynamic Methods of Traffic Control that Impact Quality of Life in Smart Cities

Traffic control management strategies have been largely focused on improving vehicular traffic flows on highways and freeways but arterials have not been used properly and pedestrians are mostly ignored. New urban arterial designs encourage modal shifts which gives further impetus to devise novel traffic control strategies to more quickly respond to changing conditions and salient events, while balancing safety and efficiency for all users.

An experimental framework is currently being developed to evaluate novel traffic control strategies through integration and deployment of commercial off-the-shelf sensors within an urban arterial network, as well as a traffic simulation model network of interconnected arterials and signalized intersections. Computer vision techniques are used to extract macroscopic traffic parameters and characterize in detail microscopic behaviors that can be used to identify salient events within and near urban intersections. The framework will be used to investigate traffic behaviors through the urban road network that includes roundabouts which will soon replace signalized intersections between major urban arterials. Controlling and adapting traffic behaviors near the confluence of roundabout intersections, as well as accurately measuring the ensuing traffic behaviors introduces challenges that presents opportunities to develop traffic control and sensing strategies for both vehicles and pedestrians. Future expansion of the sensor network within the area will then be used to form a more complete experimental test-bed to evaluate new traffic control paradigms. Sensor-in-the-loop simulation will be used to evaluate different traffic control strategies. In addition, such a traffic sensing network will provide a wealth of rich detailed data (traffic flow and densities, trajectories, etc.) that can be used by traffic engineers, scientists, and students to improve their understanding of traffic behaviors under such conditions, as well as formulate new methodologies to mitigate them.