Robust real-time control for urban road traffic networks

Journal article, 2014

The aim of the presented research is to elaborate a traffic-responsive optimal signal split algorithm taking uncertainty into account. The traffic control objective is to minimize the weighted link queue lengths within an urban network area. The control problem is formulated in a centralized rolling-horizon fashion in which unknown but bounded demand and queue uncertainty influences the prediction. An efficient constrained minimax optimization is suggested to obtain the green time combination, which minimizes the objective function when worst case uncertainty appears. As an illustrative example, a simulation study is carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness and computational feasibility of the robust predictive approach. By using real-world traffic data and microscopic traffic simulator, the proposed robust signal split algorithm is analyzed and compared with well-tuned fixed-time signal timing and to nominal predictive solutions under different traffic conditions.