Simulation of traffic flow and control using conventional, fuzzy, and adaptive methods

This paper describes the graphical simulation of a traffic environment. The environment includes streets leading to an intersection, the intersection, vehicle traffic, and signal lights in the intersection controlled by different methods. The simulation allows for the study of parameters affecting traffic environments and the study of different control strategies for traffic signal lights, including conventional, fuzzy, and adaptive control methods. Realistic traffic environments are simulated including a cross intersection, with one or more lanes of traffic in each direction, with and without turn lanes. Vehicle traffic patterns are a mixture of cars going straight and making right or left turns. The free velocities of vehicles follow a normal distribution with a mean of the posted'' speed limit. Actual velocities depend on such factors as the proximity and velocity of surrounding traffic, approaches to intersections, and human response time. The simulation proves the be a useful tool for evaluating controller methods. Preliminary results show that larger quantities of traffic are handled'' by fuzzy control methods then by conventional control methods. Also, the average time spent waiting in traffic decreases with the use of fuzzy control versus conventional control