A Reservation-based Multiagent System for Intersection Control

Traffic congestion is one of the leading causes of lost productivity and decreased standard of living in urban settings. Recent advances in artificial intelligence suggest that autonomous vehicle navigation will be possible in the near future. In this paper, we propose a reservation-based system for alleviating traffic congestion, specifically at intersections. First, we describe a custom simulator created to measure the different delays associated with conducting traffic through an intersection. Second, we specify a precise metric for evaluating the quality of traffic control at an intersection. Using this simulator and this metric, we show that the reservation-based system can perform two to three hundred times better than traffic lights. As a result, it can smoothly handle much heavier traffic conditions. We demonstrate that this system very closely approximates an overpass, which is the optimal solution for problem with which we are dealing.