Abstract
Under present-day practices, the vehicles on our roadways and city streets are mere spectators that witness traffic-related events without being able to participate in the mitigation of their effect. This paper lays the theoretical foundations of a framework for harnessing the on-board computational resources in vehicles stuck in urban congestion in order to assist transportation agencies with preventing or dissipating congestion through large-scale signal re-timing. Our framework is called VACCS: Vehicular Crowdsourcing for Congestion Support in Smart Cities. What makes this framework unique is that we suggest that in such situations the vehicles have the potential to cooperate with various transportation authorities to solve problems that otherwise would either take an inordinate amount of time to solve or cannot be solved for lack for adequate municipal resources. VACCS offers direct benefits to both the driving public and the Smart City. By developing timing plans that respond to current traffic conditions, overall traffic flow will improve, carbon emissions will be reduced, and economic impacts of congestion on citizens and businesses will be lessened. It is expected that drivers will be willing to donate under-utilized on-board computing resources in their vehicles to develop improved signal timing plans in return for the direct benefits of time savings and reduced fuel consumption costs. VACCS allows the Smart City to dynamically respond to traffic conditions while simultaneously reducing investments in the computational resources that would be required for traditional adaptive traffic signal control systems.
Highlights
Introduction and MotivationMost traffic signals in the US run a set of predefined timing plans that set the signal’s cycle length and green phase length based on historical traffic volumes that vary with time of the day and day of week
VACCS allows the Smart City to dynamically respond to traffic conditions while simultaneously reducing investments in the computational resources that would be required for traditional adaptive traffic signal control systems
VACCS will provide insight into the coordination between tomorrow’s vehicles in Smart Cities and their on-board computational, storage, and networking resources. Enabling this coordination faces many challenges, including the requirement of wireless communications and the mobility of individual vehicles which affects the dynamics of groups of vehicles
Summary
Most traffic signals in the US run a set of predefined timing plans that set the signal’s cycle length and green phase length based on historical traffic volumes that vary with time of the day and day of week. Instead of re-timing signals at the corridor level only, VACCS offers the opportunity to optimize traffic flow at the Smart City level by making dynamic use of vehicular network probe data to re-time signals. In support of preventing congestion or mitigating its effects, VACCS involves tasking a pool of vehicles to perform parallel versions of complex traffic optimizations that, properly integrated, can lead to efficient signal re-timing. VACCS will provide insight into the coordination between tomorrow’s vehicles in Smart Cities and their on-board computational, storage, and networking resources Enabling this coordination faces many challenges, including the requirement of wireless communications and the mobility of individual vehicles which affects the dynamics of groups of vehicles.
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