CATS: An adaptive traffic signal system based on car-to-car communication

Traffic signal controls play an important role in regulating vehicular flow at road intersections. Traditional systems are not capable of adjusting the timing pattern in accordance with vehicular demand. This results in excessive delays for road users. Hence it is necessary to develop dynamic systems that can adjust the timing patterns according to traffic demand. In this paper, the design and implementation of an adaptive traffic signal control system based on car-to-car communication is presented. Also, a clustering algorithm is defined which will assist in estimating the density of vehicles approaching an intersection. The cycle time, which is calculated using the estimated density of vehicular traffic, helps in reducing both the waiting time for vehicles at intersections and queue length. It is also shown that the proposed solution is collision free at intersections. The proposed system is compared with a classic pre-timed system and an adaptive fuzzy logic system. The simulations also show that the data convergence time and the communication delay between vehicles and traffic signals do not compromise the efficiency of the system.