Towards reservation-based intersection coordination: an economic approach

Understanding and controlling a complex system like traffic is not a trivial task. To this aim, many market-based methods have been applied to the design and the management of such systems, by defining the "rules of the game" and trying to enforce a desired global outcome. We model traffic as a computational economy, where drivers trade with the intelligent infrastructure in a virtual marketplace, buying time and space to cross intersections when commuting through the city. We show how such mechanism influences the drivers\´ behaviour, producing benefits for both the drivers (i.e. lower average travel times) and the road network (i.e. less congestions).