Congestion management algorithm for any road network with minimum intersections/ right turns

Abstract

Heavily congested roads in city areas are a common problem today. Several attempts to solve this problem by improving road infrastructure or imposing restrictions on motor vehicles entering city areas were failed, especially in developing countries like Sri Lanka. This may be due to lack of funds to improve the infrastructure, the objections of the general public on applying restrictions on the inflow of vehicles or difficulties on acquiring lands to construct roads in highly populated areas. Therefore it is important to have a different method to handle traffic congestions and vehicle flow. Another major difficulty of finding a solution for heavily congested roads in city areas was the unpredictable nature of vehicle flow rates at a given time. There can be variations due to unexpected accidents, breakdowns, events and other emergency situations which may occur due to political or environmental issues. A methodology of handling city traffic in a very efficient way by proper traffic management instead of modifying the road infrastructure is proposed in this research. This is achieved by rearranging the traffic flow in such a way that the interruption to the continuous traffic flow is minimized. A software system was developed using Flow Control Mechanisms, Genetic Algorithms and Graph Theory in order to dynamically suggest improved traffic plans. The software system was further developed to generate efficient traffic plans at real-time with the latest information which can be acquired with the latest communication technologies. Traffic conditions were transmitted using mobile or satellite communication channels as required from the pre-determined locations. Then a better traffic plan is achieved by identifying a congested junction or junctions in a city and rearranging the traffic flow in such a way that the interruptions to the continuous traffic flow are minimized at the congested location or locations. The proposed intelligent software tool can generate efficient traffic plans and can be used as a decision support system to reduce the traffic congestion.