Optimal signal control for pre-timed signalized junctions with uncertain traffic: Simulation based optimization approach

Pre-timed signalized junctions are prevalent in real world as they are inexpensive and easy to implement. Traffic flow in these junctions exhibit large variations even for the same time interval of the day. Hence, robust signal timings, those are less sensitive to uncertain traffic flow are desired. The existing signal control models for pre-timed junctions use min-max approach for robust signal control when the ranges of traffic flow are known. The limitation of these models are: (i) the optimality of solution is not guaranteed, and (ii) not scalable for larger ranges of traffic flow due to long computational times. In this work, we propose a simulation based optimization approach which overcomes these limitations. Simulation results show that our work performs better than the existing models for both under-saturated and over-saturated traffic flows. Also, the computational time taken by our approach is significantly less.