Optimal Steady-State Control for Isolated Traffic Intersections

A simplified isolated controlled vehicular traffic intersection with two movements is considered. A discrete-event max-plus model is proposed to formulate an optimization problem for the green-red switching sequence. In the case when the criterion is a strictly increasing, linear function of the queue lengths, the problem becomes a linear programming problem. Also, in this case, the steady-state control problem can be solved analytically. A sufficient and necessary condition for steady-state control is derived, and the structure of optimal steady-state traffic control is revealed. Our condition is the same as the necessary condition in for both queue lengths to be non-increasing at an isolated intersection.