A cooperative fuzzy control method for traffic lights

The controlling of traffic signals is an important aspect in modern traffic system. In this paper, we present new concepts that called main urgent phase and minor urgent phase. The traffic data are acquired from the detectors in the intersections and lanes. Based on the concepts of main and minor urgent phase, a set of novel fuzzy control rules is developed to control the phases and delay of traffic lights according to the dynamic characters of some correlative traffic intersections. The new method can reduce the average delay time of vehicles effectively. The method is compared with the method of Jee-Hyong Lee et al. (1995, 1999) by computer simulation, and the results prove that our method can improve the performance significantly especially when the traffic flow is light.