A traffic efficiency promotion algorithm for urban arterial roads based on speed guidance

Vehicles may experience a lot of extra travel time when passing through urban arterial roads, due to the waiting time at signalized intersections and the slow-to-start process after that. Various methods based on green wave control have been carried out to promote the traffic efficiency in urban arterial roads. However, such methods cannot ensure that all vehicles from all directions are able to pass through the intersections without a stop. This paper proposes a novel distributed algorithm which, theoretically, allows each vehicle to keep a certain non-zero speed when passing through intersections. Therefore, the travel time of each vehicle can be reduced by a shorter and immediate acceleration process instead of a slow-to-start after passing through intersections. This algorithm is also an economic alternative for roads maintainers and an environmental friendly way of control strategy. The key principles of this algorithm as well as the optimization model are thoroughly explained in this paper. A simulation based on VISSIM is applied to verify the proposed algorithm.