03/03/2019 TRL Software | SCOOT™ - TRL Software

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TRL Software > Products > Traffic Control > SCOOT™

SCOOT™
Split Cycle and Offset Optimisation Technique
World famous adaptive urban tra c signal control system

In urban areas where tra c signals are close together, the co-ordination of
adjacent signals is important and gives great bene ts to road users. Co-
ordinating signals over a network of con icting routes is much more di cult
than co-ordinating along a route.

SCOOT has proved to be an e ective and e cient tool for managing tra c on
signalised road networks and is now used in over 250 towns and cities in the UK
and overseas. SCOOT uses data from vehicle detectors and optimises tra c
signal settings to reduce vehicle delays and stops. There are a number of basic
philosophies which led to the development of SCOOT. One of these was to
provide a fast response to changes in tra c conditions to enable SCOOT to
respond to variations in tra c demand on a cycle-by-cycle basis. SCOOT
responds rapidly to changes in tra c, but not so rapidly that it is unstable; it

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avoids large uctuations in control behaviour as a result of temporary changes

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in tra c patterns.

Preparing such signal plans requires tra c data to be collected

Supportand analysed for
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each situation and time of day for which a plan is required. This is time
consuming and expensive and unless plans are updated regularly as tra c
patterns change they become less and less e cient. To overcome these
problems, the concept of a demand responsive UTC system was developed.
Initial e orts were not successful, mainly because of a continuing reliance on
plans, either pre-prepared or dynamically developed.

TRL developed a methodology to overcome these problems. An on-line

computer continuously monitored tra c ows over the whole network, fed the
ows into an on-line model, similar to that used in TRANSYT, and used the
output from the model as input to its signal timing optimisers. These optimisers
made a series of frequent small adjustments to signal timings to minimise the
modelled vehicle delays throughout the network. This was the basis of SCOOT
which, has been continuously developed to meet the needs of today’s tra c
managers.

Early work developed o -line software to calculate optimum signal settings for a
signal network. TRANSYT, developed by TRL, is probably the best known
example. TRANSYT can be used to compile a series of xed time signal plans for
di erent times of day or for special recurring tra c conditions.

Current Version: MMX SP1 (JTR)

System Requirements:
SCOOT is an on-line UTC (urban tra c control) system.

Product Information Sheet

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MOVA
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Microprocessor Optimised Vehicle Actuation

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MotorGraph
Near real-time web-based tool for visualising motorway events,
congestion and tra c

TRANSYT Online
Extended TRANSYT functionality allows optimised Signal Plans to be
sent directly to on-street controllers

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