Implementation Vision for Distributed Control of Traffic Signal Subsystems

Abstract

The developments that have led to the construction of the 2070 controller are reviewed. The intelligent transportation system community has proposed many features and user services that will likely use this new controller. In general, many of the functions proposed for this controller, such as emergency vehicle preemption, transit priority, weather monitoring, dynamic lane assignment, enhanced malfunction diagnostics, and adaptive algorithms, are all technically feasible. To achieve widespread deployment of systems that integrate several advanced traffic management system features, however, a systematic method for integrating a variety of distributed computing subsystems must be thoughtfully defined. The fundamental benefits of adopting a distributed control model for traffic signal subsystems are described and summarized.