Fuzzy Rules to Improve Traffic Light Decisions in Urban Roads

Abstract

Many researchers around the world are looking for developing techniques or technologies that cover traditional and recent constraints in urban traffic con-trol. Normally, such traffic devices are facing with a large scale of input data when they must to response in a reliable, suitable and fast way. Because of such statement, the paper is devoted to introduce a proposal for enhancing the traffic light decisions. The principal goal is that a semaphore can provide a correct and fluent vehicular mobility. However, the traditional semaphore operative ways are outdated. We present in a previous contribution the development of a methodology capable of improving the vehicular mobility by proposing a new green light interval based on road conditions with a CBR approach. However, this proposal should include whether it is needed to modify such light duration. To do this, the paper proposes the adaptation of a fuzzy inference system helping to decide when the semaphore should try to fix the green light interval according to specific road requirements. Some experiments are conducted in a simulated environment to evaluate the pertinence of implementing a decision-making before the CBR methodology. For example, using a fuzzy inference approach the decisions of the system improve almost 18% in a set of 10,000 experiments. Finally, some conclusions are drawn to emphasize the benefits of including this technique in a methodology to implement intelligent semaphores.