A multi-band approach to arterial traffic signal optimization

Progression schemes are widely used for traffic signal control in arterial streets. Under such a scheme a continuous green band of uniform width is provided in each direction along the artery at the desired speed of travel. A basic limitation of existing bandwidth-based programs is that they do not consider the actual traffic volumes and flow capacities on each link in their optimization criterion. Consequently they cannot guarantee the most suitable progression scheme for different traffic flow patterns. This paper presents a new optimization approach for arterial progression that incorporates a systematic traffic-dependent criterion. The method generates a variable bandwidth progression in which each directional road section can obtain an individually weighted bandwidth (hence, the term multi-band). Mixed-integer linear programming is used for the optimization. Simulation results indicate that this method can produce considerable gains in performance when compared with traditional progression methods. It also lends itself to a natural extension for the optimization of grid networks.