Abstract

In many places where heavy traffic can be a problem measures are introduced to try and ease the pressure on the areas roads to aid the flow of traffic around the road system. Some of the methods used involve, traffic lights, roundabouts, one-way systems and more dramatically bypass roads completely avoiding the problem areas. Traffic lights are often used often at junctions or road intersections to aid the flow of traffic from different directions. The purpose of the lights is clear and the theory behind them is sound, meaning that at a particular junction vehicles will regularly flow through, minimising the queue build up in any one direction. In practice this is a different matter, multiple sets of traffic lights are put together, affecting the flow of vehicles from one to the next. The key to obtaining the optimum traffic flow is to adjust the timings of the traffic lights at the junctions so that the whole block is in sequence with each other. Another viewpoint of the traffic flow problem is how the vehicles on the road interact with each other and with the control measures such as roundabouts and traffic lights. The individual actions of a vehicle can affect the smooth flow originally intended from the road layout design. For example changing lanes in heavy traffic can mean that one lane cannot move forward even though the road is clear ahead because the lane the vehicle is moving into is stationary. When considering an appropriate model for representing the situation we can take the view of both the vehicles and traffic flow measure (for example traffic lights) as agents that interact with each other, being individual (a car chooses to change lane) but dependent on each other (cars have to stop when a traffic light ahead is red). The proposal for the paper is to look into this claim and investigate whether the timing of traffic lights can aid the flow of traffic. A model can be constructed to show this and could be interacted with to explore the effects of changing the frequency at which the lights change, whether they changed at an equal rate and the rate of traffic approaching from each direction. Having both vehicles and traffic lights as agents if desired. This also involves elements of concurrency as vehicles will independently move and traffic lights change, all at the same time.