HIERARCHICAL TECHNIQUES IN TRAFFIC CONTROL.

Abstract Undoubtedly, traffic control (both street and freeway) is a genuinely large Scale Systems problem. The current practice is to use a Central Computer to control traffic on both city streets and on the freeway. There is a growing body of literature on the control of large Scale systems via a hierarchical or multi-level technique. Under this scheme, the various functions that make up a computer traffic control system can be broken down into multi-levels and these functions can be assigned to satellite computers. The Central Computer then would act in a supervisory manner in addition to performing other tasks such as map display, data reduction etc. This paper applies a hierarchical control algorithm to street traffic control. One version of the algorithm has been programmed to simulate its execution on a microprocessor. Preliminary results indicate that it may be possible to implement the algorithm with microprocessors. It is felt that with increased use of computer aided traffic control system, it is appropriate to discuss the most efficient ways of using modern mini and micro computers in a hierarchical setting for traffic control.