Enhancing Traffic Intersection Control with Intelligent Objects

Traffic control is an old and ever growing problem in cities throughout the world. Within many cities, intersections represent bottlenecks in the flow of traffic. Evaluating intersections control is complex and difficult. Given this, intersection management is both costly and time consuming. This paper considers the potential benefits of enhancing the traffic intersection with the use of intelligent objects in vehicles. We present, compare and demonstrate a novel Vehicle Back-Off Protocol against a classical Timed Traffic Control system. Our protocol uses ad-hoc messaging, collision avoidance and shared journey plans as a means by which to reduce delay, adapt a journey and maximise the efficient usage of a traffic intersection. We use simulation to model and evaluate intersection control.