An Efficient Simulation Methodology For The Design of Traffic Lights at Intersections in Urban Areas
An Efficient Simulation Methodology For The Design of Traffic Lights at Intersections in Urban Areas
An Efficient Simulation Methodology For The Design of Traffic Lights at Intersections in Urban Areas
City traffic light control is a complex, challenging problem, making it difficult to perform analyses with
traditional analytical techniques. An essential goal of traffic management, planning, and design is
setting traffic signals at intersections to minimize the queue length and vehicle delay time. The au-
thor presents a simulation methodology that can be used as an efficient design aid for the analysis,
management, and design of efficient traffic signaling in intersections. A four-leg signalized intersec-
tion is used as a design example. The performance of the three-phase and four-phase plans using
simulation was compared, and simulation results showed that the three-phase plan has better perfor-
mance characteristics than the four-phase plan. The main performance metrics considered are the
mean waiting time, mean queue length, and mean utilization of green-light time. The results obtained
demonstrate the efficiency of the methodology.
Keywords: Traffic light signaling, transportation engineering and planning, simulation, optimization,
traffic control
red phase. The number of stops is considered an important OPAC from the United States. The last three systems de-
metric in air quality models [1-7]. cide whether to switch the traffic lights at each step of time
The development of signal timing plans and design in- [16].
volves a number of important components. These include Congestion and traffic jams are major socioeconomic
(1) development of the phase plan and sequence, (2) de- issues that are supposed to be addressed by city planners
termination of the cycle length, and (3) allocation of ef- and engineers. Building a new road or highway is not al-
fective green-light time to the various phases. Develop- ways a feasible or cost-effective approach; therefore, one
ment of an appropriate phase plan for a given situation is good approach to tackle this problem is to use adaptive
one of the most important aspects of signal design. There (dynamic) traffic control. This approach has become of
are no simple schemes to develop a phase plan. Any fur- interest to some Departments of Transportation (DOTs)
ther calculation or analytic analysis for cycle length and worldwide [8-12].
green-light time determination requires the phase plan to be The patterns of traffic change during the day depend
specified. Thus, the development of a phase plan involves on external influences such as weather conditions, inci-
more professional judgment than determining the timing dents, holidays, and so on. To obtain optimal traffic con-
plan. The main aspect of any phase plan is determining trol policies, the model should adapt to these changes as
the left-turn movement requirement for protection [4-12] well changes in drivers’ reactions to such conditions. Also,
(see also http://www.cerf.org/hitec/eval/ongoing/atc.htm traffic load may need to be continuously measured by loop
and http://lcewww.et.tudelft.nl/∼crweb/archive/). detectors connected to a microcontroller-based system that
In traditional signal control systems, prestored timing also performs all intersection control functions [11]. In this
plans that have been developed offline using historical data study, we consider the traditional approach of traffic signal
are used. These systems are not responsive to dynamic traf- control systems since the adaptive traffic control scheme
fic demands. Adaptive traffic light signal control systems cannot be generalized and only applies to that specific case,
are capable of adapting to actual traffic conditions; they meaning that it is case dependant.
aim for continuous optimal system performance. These
adaptive traffic signal control systems require extensive de- 2. Phase Plans and Modeling
ployment of traffic detectors and surveillance equipment,
which can eliminate the need for signal retiming and ide- The two-phase plan is the simplest plan (see Fig. 1). Each
ally reduce maintenance and operating costs. street receives one phase during which all movement from
Among the industry standard of adaptive control sys- that street is made. All left and right turns are made on a
tems are the split-cycle offset optimization technique permitted basis. This form of signaling is appropriate for
(SCOOT) and the Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic cases in which the mix of left turns and opposing through-
System (SCATS) [13-16] (see also http://signalsystems. flows is such that no unreasonable delays or unsafe condi-
tamu.edu/documents/TRBWorkshop2000/SCOOT_TRB tions are created by drivers.
2000Part 2.pdf). SCATS, which was developed by the The issue of whether left-turn protection on any or all
Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) of New South Wales intersection approaches should be provided is difficult to
in Australia, is reputed to be the world’s most advanced determine but can be simplified by some guidelines:
dynamic traffic control system. It is basically a computer-
based area traffic signal control system. It consists of a 1. Left-turn protection should be used for left-turn vol-
complete system of hardware, software, and control phi- umes of more than 250 vehicles per hour (vph).
losophy and operates in real time, adjusting signal timings
throughout the system in response to variations in traffic 2. For volumes less than 250 vph, the opposing vol-
demand and system capacity. SCATS is meant to control umes and number of lanes should be considered.
traffic on an areawide basis rather than an uncoordinated in- 3. For small left-turn volumes less than 100 vph, left
tersection basis. SCATS can respond dynamically to traffic protection is rarely used.
pattern changes by continuously adjusting signal timings,
cycle by cycle, so that optimum traffic flow is achieved The three-phase plan is used where permitted. In addi-
[13, 14]. tion, protected phasing is allowed. This approach is more
SCOOT is a second-by-second command-and-monitoring difficult for drivers to understand, but it can provide ben-
adaptive control system. It uses the power of a local con- efits by reducing delays (see Fig. 2). The four-phase plan
troller, which controls the clearance, minimums, local ac- can be used to provide left- turn protection for all left-turn
tuation, and detector preprocessing. It is widely installed movements. This approach may cause more delays in some
in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. cases. Figure 3 illustrates the four-phase plan.
The system has a DEC Alpha server running OpenVMS In general, many phase plans can be introduced to
with needed peripherals, local-area networks (LANs), de- intersections, and the traffic engineer and planner have
tectors, and transmission lines [13-16]. much flexibility in designing an appropriate phase plan.
Other adaptive systems include LHOVRA from Swe- The main objectives are efficiency of operation and safety
den, UTOPIA from Italy, PRODYN from France, and to the motorist. On the other hand, complicated phasing
Phase1 Phase2
Figure 1. Phase diagram of two-phase plan. Dashed line indicates the opposed movement in which the movement is not protected.
must be measured not only from the efficiency point of the reference vehicle crosses the curb line. The first head-
view but also from the drivers’ point of view. A very com- way is relatively long because reaction time and the time
plicated phase plan may confuse drivers in most cases. to accelerate for the first are longer. The second headway
Although there are general criteria available to help in is shorter; after four or five vehicles, the headway tends to
the design process, the traffic engineer/planner must apply level out to some level, called the saturation headway (h).
knowledge and understanding of various phasing options Saturation flow rate (vehicles/hour) can be calculated using
and how they affect other critical aspects of signalization, S = 3600/ h, where h is the saturation headway. The sat-
such as capacity and delay. Some mechanisms and con- uration headway was in the range of 2.11 to 5.66 veh/sec.
cepts must be understood before any description is made The critical lane concept involves finding how much time
of cycle length of signalized intersections: (1) discharge is allocated for signals. During any given signal phase,
headway at the signalized intersection, (2) the critical lane, several lanes of traffic on one or more approaches are per-
and (3) peak-hour factor (PHF) and the required volume- mitted to move. One of them will have the most intense
to-capacity ratio (v/c). traffic. This is the lane for which time must be allocated
The discharge headway is the time between two suc- during the subject phase. It requires more time than the
cessive vehicles crossing the curb line as the rear wheel of other lanes.
Thus, if sufficient time is allocated for the critical lane, for the same intersection, and it will be compared to the
then all other lanes are accommodated as well. To calculate three-phase plan.
the cycle length for a phase plan, we should calculate the The second step is to convert all volumes to the
critical lane volumes and their summation. To account for “through-car unit” (tcu). The through-car equivalent for
peaking within the hour, PHF is used as a metric. We also nonprotected left-turning vehicles depends on the oppos-
consider the required v/c. ing vehicle flow. From tabulated data, we can get the
It should be stated that the utilization of effective green- through-car equivalent, as shown in Table 1. The through-
light time will never be 100%, and it is not desired to have car equivalent for protected left turns is equal to 1.05,
the v/c equal to 1 because this may result in high delay. while the through-car equivalent for right-turning vehi-
Then, cycle length can be computed using the following cles with the moderate conflicting condition of pedestrians
formula: (200 peds/hour) is equal to 1.32.
The third step is to identify the critical lane volumes for
C = [(N · tl )]/[1 − V c/[PHF · v/c · (3600/ h)], (1) each phase. The larger volume for each phase is considered
the critical volume for that phase. From Figure 5, we can
where N is the number of signal phases, tl is the lost time calculate the sum of critical lane volumes for this signal
per phase, V c is the sum of critical lane volumes, PHF is plan as follows:
the peak-hour factor, v/c is the required volume-to-capacity
ratio, and h is the saturation headway (h = 2.23 for a 12- V c = 263 + 516 + 375 = 1154 tcu.
foot lane).
The fourth step is to calculate the cycle length for this
3. Simulation Modeling model, assuming that the pretimed signal is in use. For
cycle length, the following is used:
In our study, we considered the intersection shown in Fig-
ure 4. To design an effective signal-timing plan for this C = [(N · tl )]/{1 − V c/(PHF · v/c · 3600/ h)]}, (2)
intersection, the following steps were considered: (1) de-
sign of an appropriate phase plan, (2) appropriate data con- where N is the number of signal phases, tl is the lost time
version, (3) calculation of critical lane volumes, (4) cycle per phase, V c is the sum of critical lane volumes, PHF is
length determination based on the above steps, (5) alloca- the expected peak-hour factor, v/c is the required volume-
tion of time between different phases, and (6) simulation to-capacity ratio, and h is the saturation headway (h =
and evaluation of the system by comparing it to alternative 2.23 for a 12-foot lane). For our model, we assume the
designs. following: N = 3 phases, tl = 3 sec, PHF = 0.92, v/c = 0.90,
The other timing plan that we worked on was a four- and V c = 1154 tcu. Therefore, the desired cycle length (C)
phase plan, which is popular in some countries. We studied is about 70 sec.
this plan to evaluate the original design and to show the The fifth step is to allocate the effective green-light time
differences between those two design approaches. for each phase. The lost time per phase is 3 sec. For the
The first step in our work is to design the appropriate three phases, the total lost time is 3 · 3 = 9 sec. The ef-
phase plan that will optimize the flow through the inter- fective green-light time is 70 − 9 = 61 sec. The allocation
section. There is some consideration regarding left turns, of effective green-light time for each phase will be propor-
which involves deciding whether to use protected left-turn tional to the critical lane volumes. The effective green-light
phases. This can be checked by the cross-products of left- time for each phase is given in Table 2.
turn volumes and opposing through-volumes. If they are The minimum cycle length can be obtained by keeping
less than 50,000 and the left-turn volume is less than 200 PHF = 1.0 and v/c = 1.0 in equation (2) and can be written
vph, then the protected left-turn phase is not required. The as follows:
calculation of the left-turn protected requirement for our
model is as follows: C = [(N · tl )]/{1 − V c/(3600/ h)]}.
1 250
800 NORTH
50
500
35
WEST
EAST
75
610
70
SOUTH 700
220 185
375 tcu
140 tcu
351 tcu
263 tcu
516 tcu
cycle length of 70 sec or greater is considered. The whole From equation (3), we can find that C equals 125 sec, which
design was simulated for the cycle length of C = 70 sec. is the desired cycle length.
We assumed that the time between arrivals is exponentially The total lost time for all phases is 3 · 4 = 12 sec.
distributed in all cases. The effective green-light time is 125 − 12 = 113 sec. The
The other possible design for our intersection is to use allocation of effective green-light time for each phase will
four-phase signal, with all protected left turns, as shown in be proportional to the critical lane volumes. We assumed
Figure 3. The same methodology used for the three-phase that the time between arrivals is exponentially distributed
plan is used for the four-phase plan (see Table 3). The for each approach.
through-car equivalent for protected left turns is equal to
1.05 for east and west approaches. From Figure 6, we can 4. Simulation Results
calculate the sum of critical lane volumes for this signal
plan: The design of infrastructures for automobile traffic poses
many challenges. Among these is the issue of automobile
V c = 263 + 516 + 79 + 351 = 1209 tcu. drivers’ behaviors; these drivers are not as easily manage-
The next step is to calculate the cycle length for this model, able and predictable as are drivers for mass-transportation
assuming that the pretimed signal is in use. For cycle systems, such as public buses and trains. Automobile
length, the following is used: drivers act as individual agents, managed only through
traffic rules, signs, and traffic lights, in particular. Clearly,
C = [N · tl ]/{1 − [V c/(PHF · v/c · 3600/ h)]}. (3) this makes predictions of the overall traffic dynamics
40 36.09 4 3.705
No. of vehicles
30 3 2.397
Time (sec.)
Figure 7. Mean waiting time results Figure 8. Average queue length results
Table 3. The through-car unit (tcu) equivalent for the four-phase case
Shared
Lane Per Lane
Volume Volume Volume Volume
Approach Movement (vph) Equivalent (tcu) (Tcu) Tcu/lane
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