CHAPTER1. INTRODUCTION
1.2 Goals
For simulating the self-organizing traffic light controllers, a realistic traffic simu-
lator is needed in which those traffic light controllers can be tested. My first goal
is to get such a traffic simulator. Other programmers have already worked on such
projects and the Green Light District / iAtracos project is a good starting point for
implementing the simulator. Those projects already have a lot of features imple-
mented and I added extra features to get a more realistic traffic simulator. Cars
can accelerate and decelerate and they keep a stop distance to the previous one.
They respect the maximum speed of the road they are moving on, etc.
My second goal is to demonstrate that the sotl-platoon controller of Carlos
Gershenson performs much better than a green wave controller. This is shown
by simulating those controllers in different scenarios, and comparing the average
total waiting time of the road users for different controllers.
The third goal is to show the Ministry of the Brussels-Capital region that the
sotl-platoon traffic light controller is better than the current controller in the Wet-
straat of Brussels. The Wetstraat is currently using a green wave algorithm to-
wards the centre of Brussels. The Wetstraat has to be studied first concerning the
design of the road, traffic density, origin and destination of cars that travel on the
Wetstraat, the green times and periods of the current traffic light controller, etc.
These data are then translated into a map which will be used by the simulator. Fi-
nally the simulations of the new traffic light controllers can be tested on the map
and the simulation data will be compared for different traffic light controllers.
1.3 Outline
In chapter two the traffic light controllers of Carlos Gershenson are introduced
and some other research on optimization and adaptation of traffic lights. For the
simulation I made improvements to an existing traffic simulator project, which is
discussed in chapter three, and in chapter four a full report is given on the improve-
ments on this simulator. Chapter five presents and discusses the simulation results
for three scenarios with five traffic light controllers. Chapter six contains the final
conclusions of the improvements to the simulator and the simulation results.