An Intersection Signal Control Mechanism Assisted by Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

The urban intersection signal decision-making in traditional control methods are mostly based on the vehicle information within an intersection area. The far vehicles that have not reached the intersection area are not taken into account, which results in incomplete information and even incorrectness in decision-making. This paper presents an intersection signal control mechanism assisted by far vehicle information. Using the aid of real-time information collection for far vehicles through vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs), we can consider them together and calculate the accumulative waiting time for each intersection traffic flow at a future moment to make the optimal signal decision. Simulation results show that, under three different traffic flow environments—same even traffic flows, same uneven traffic flows, and different traffic flows—the two proposed implementation schemes based on the mechanism (fixed phase and period timing improvement scheme, and dynamic phase and period control scheme) show good performances, in which the average waiting time and the ratio of long-waiting vehicles are both less than the results of the traditional signal timing scheme. Especially, in the second scheme, the waiting time was reduced by an average of 38.6% and the ratio of long-waiting vehicles was reduced by an average of 7.67%.