An Optimizing Algorithm to Minimize the Delay Signal Setting Problem

In this work an algorithm for the optimization of signal setting on urban network is proposed. Signal setting are designed based on a given flow in the network. However, the flow in the network is also influenced by the route choice decisions. This paper deals with traffic signal setting with demand assignment. All approaches proposed in literature to address this problem are based on equilibrium assignment, well established in literature as well as in practice. In order to improve the coordination of signal setting with traffic assignment, this paper proposed a traffic control algorithm considering traffic assignment. We proposed the platoon model to simulate the demand assignment and we developed the surrogate method to optimize the signal setting. The surrogate approach is compared with the genetic algorithm, a well known method. The objective function used in this work is a weighted sum of the delays caused by the signalized intersections, and it is calculated by platoon model via simulation. Numerical experiments on real networks are reported.