Model based Traffic Control in Indian Conditions

Congestion and associated traffic safety are the major challenges for transportation systems all over the world in recent years. Congestion occurs when traffic demand exceeds the operational capacity of the roadway. Better management of infrastructure is required in improving the operational capacity. Traffic signals are one of the most popular traffic control strategies that have been adopted for managing the demand and to reduce congestion; but if not properly designed will lead to excessive delay and increase in travel time. Therefore, signals need to be designed based on theory of traffic flow that requires a good understanding of the traffic system. The present study proposes a macroscopic model based control scheme for Indian traffic conditions. Traffic density and speed are used as the state variables to characterize the system and the developed control scheme regulates the density inside the section.