Integrated Signal and Bus Lane Control: An intersection-level approach

This paper proposes a novel passenger- oriented intelligent intersection-level control named "Integrated Signal and Bus Lane Control" (ISBLC), which aims to balance between the optimization of passenger throughput and the reliability of public transport operations by dynamically adjusting traffic signals and assigning dedicated bus lanes to upstream lanes of the intersection, based on the observed traffic conditions, as well as the Vehicle-to- Infrastructure (V2I) communication. The method utilizes reinforcement learning, which allows the system to learn and adapt to continuously changing traffic conditions in real-time, while enabling the proposed scheme to continuously improve its decisions based on the consequences of previous actions, leading to more efficient traffic management. Findings suggest that ISBLC, when compared to traditional traffic signal and bus prioritization approaches, shows excellent results both in terms of transit reliability and level of service of adjacent road traffic, in a wide range of demand profiles.