Optimal traffic control

by Slobodan Guberinić

Despite traffic circles, four-way stop signs, lights regulated by timers or sensors, and other methods, the management of urban intersections remains problematic. Consider that transportation systems have all the features of so-called complex systems: the great number of state and control variables, the presence of uncertainty and indeterminism, the complex interactions between subsystems, the necessity to optimize several optimization criteria, and active behavior of the controlled process, to name just a few. Therefore, a mathematical approach to these systems can resolve their complex issues more elegantly than other methods. Addressing both efficiency and traffic safety issues, Optimal Traffic Control: Urban Intersections examines the traffic control optimization problem and presents a novel solution method. Using an approach based on control theory, graph theory, and combinatorial optimization, the authors derive a full mathematical description of the traffic control problem and e