An Efficient Simulation Methodology for the Design of Traffic Lights at Intersections in Urban Areas

Abstract

City traffic light control is a complex, challenging problem, making it difficult to perform analyses with traditional analytical techniques. An essential goal of traffic management, planning, and design is setting traffic signals at intersections to minimize the queue length and vehicle delay time. The author presents a simulation methodology that can be used as an efficient design aid for the analysis, management, and design of efficient traffic signaling in intersections. A four-leg signalized intersection is used as a design example. The performance of the three-phase and four-phase plans using simulation was compared, and simulation results showed that the three-phase plan has better performance characteristics than the four-phase plan. The main performance metrics considered are the mean waiting time, mean queue length, and mean utilization of green-light time. The results obtained demonstrate the efficiency of the methodology.