2nd IFAC Symposium on Telematics Applications

Politehnica University, Timisoara, Romania

October 5-8, 2010

An agent-oriented software platform for urban traffic networks modeling,

analysis and control

Simona Iuliana Caramihai, Ioan Dumitrache, Monica Voinescu

Automatic Control and Computer Science Faculty,Politehnica University of Bucharest,

313 Splaiul Independentei, Bucharest, 060042, Romania
(e-mail: caramihai2002@yahoo.com; idumitrache@ics.pub.ro; vmc4u@yahoo.com )

Abstract: The paper presents a software application for modeling, simulation and analysis of urban
traffic networks behavior in different functioning contexts. A module of control techniques, based on
different approaches (as genetic algorithms, fuzzy and neural networks) allows the platform to provide
decision support for context-based traffic control in large urban areas. The application is based on a
three-layered control architecture: the basic level monitoring and controlling junctions, the middle one
ensuring smooth functioning of sub-networks, by the coordination of interconnected junctions and the top
level ensuring a globally optimized functioning of the system.

the platform users a flexible, open-system environment for

1. INTRODUCTION
One of the most acute problems of large urban
agglomerations is the efficient management of their traffic
infrastructure. Due to the socio-economical dynamics, it is a
fact that the number of cars is increasing at a far more
important rate than the infrastructure, resulting, especially at
peak-hours, in traffic congestions that affect the quality of
life, in terms of stress, noise, safety and pollution. These
problems can be solved, at a certain level, by political
measures and public education, but they also need a technical
approach related to the adaptation of urban traffic functioning
to real context. More specifically, traffic congestion can and
should be avoided, in certain circumstances, by adapting the
duration of traffic lights to the car flow, this being an
approach that necessitates the lowest investments in
infrastructure modifications. Higher investments and
different approaches can be justified when the problem
becomes insolvable by traffic light control.
Extensive research has been done in the field, on modeling,
control and optimization of urban and highway traffic flow.
A comprehensive review on modeling methods is given by
Hoogendoorn (2001) and a dual modeling approach was
presented in Voinescu (2009). From the control and
optimization perspective, several systems have been
implemented in many countries; the most complex developed
so far being the Universal Traffic Management System in
Japan described in Maeoka (2000).
The paper presents a software platform that was conceived
for implementing, testing, and validating the applicability of
several intelligent techniques for traffic light control towards
avoiding traffic congestions. The platform design is based on
an agent-oriented approach for modeling and simulating the
traffic infrastructure, which will be described in section II.
The agent-based approach is justified both by the difficulty of
globally modeling a traffic network, with high dynamics and
large-scale, complex structure and by the necessity to offer to
building their own test cases of traffic infrastructure to
analyze.
The platform structure and functioning is described in section
III. The user can design its own traffic network using a
generic agent library or designing new agent structures with
added capabilities which can be easily integrated and used on
the platform. Agents can be interconnected by their pairs by
specifying structural information related to the capacity of the
roads that represent the physical links. A traffic network
functioning can be simulated using input files of data and
with different approaches for the structure of their traffic light
cycles, that can be modified either by the user or by the agent
itself, following its embedded control policies.
Section IV will present the control approach. At this moment,
a module that allows a genetic algorithms (GA) control
approach is in place and there are two other modules under
construction – one implementing fuzzy control and another
implementing a neural networks approach. The section will
present results obtained with GA control on a case study.
The final section will present conclusions and future work.
2. AGENT-BASED ARCHITECTURE FOR SIMULATION
OF URBAN TRAFFIC
Due to its geographically distributed nature, the domain of
traffic and transportation management is well suited to
distributed architectures and multi-agent based approaches.
Especially when applied for urban areas, where the traffic
network topology is very complex, the traffic control
paradigm is shifting towards decentralized, hierarchical
approaches with smaller control centers that have to manage
only parts of the global structure. A more scalable and
flexible traffic control scheme is based on distributed control
where junctions are represented by intelligent agents that
cooperate in order to reach an optimum traffic state. Prikryl

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(2006) reviews several directions of development in the use
of distributed or multi-agent systems in the form of peer-to-
peer networks of decision makers in urban traffic control.
This paper is using an approach that decomposes a traffic
network into two kinds of parts: active elements, such as
junctions, which have a definite role in regulating the car
flow, and passive elements, as the roads that link active
elements and are only physical parameters of the system.
Based on this decomposition, the agent-based architecture
presented by the paper has the structure depicted in figure 1.
controls – number and connections of input/ output roads,
number and synchronization of traffic lights (also reflected in
the activation profile), capacity of input roads (number of
standard vehicles that they can contain without causing
congestions), links with peer agents – and parametrical data.
Parametrical data are either linked to the car flows, or to the
current activation profile. Such parameters are defining three
basic functioning regimes for the agent, if correlated with the
structural information about input road capacity (figure 3.):

Fig.3: Functioning regimes for a junction agent

Fig. 1.: Three-level agent-based architecture
At the bottom level, there are junction-agents, each of them
being able to control the duration and succession of traffic
lights for a given crossroad, so as to adapt it to the input car
flow and to simulate junction behavior in order to evaluate
control performance.
Detailed modeling and functioning of junction agents are
described in Caramihai (2009) and Udrea (2009). Basically,
such an agent receives and processes data about its input car
flows, either directly, from sensors, or indirectly, in input
data files (for off-line simulation/ analysis regime) or from
adjacent agents. It is also able to transmit data about its
output car flows, collected from junction sensors or obtained
by estimations to its adjacent respective peers.
A junction agent builds an activation profile of the light
phases (figure 2) given traffic light information which is
stored in its world model and was either computed or
received from its zonal supervisor. This activation profile is
calculated for different functioning contexts of the crossroad
and enables the agent to simulate junction behavior while
modifying green light timings between given limits, with the
purpose of avoiding congestions on its input roads.
phase 1
1 without considering how they affect others. When the control
0.5
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
- Safe zone regime: the length of the car queue does not
exceed a pre-defined (lower) warning limit when red
light at the segment output; the agent will not change its
control parameters and will only transmit output data to
respective peer agent, at the end of every light phase;
- Warning zone regime: if the car queue length is
between the lower and the higher warning limits, then
the agent will try to modify the parameters of its
activation profile (fine tuning) with respect to the
duration of light phases. The phase order in the
activation profile structure is not changed. The control
variables are the green light durations which will be
modified between pre-defined limits. It is considered that
an “acceptable” evolution is obtained, if the trend of the
car queue length is reversed.
- Critical zone regime: if car queue length exceeds the
higher warning limit, another functioning scenario is
necessary and it will be either requested to the zone
supervisor or selected from the world model library;
since it is considered that the functioning context has
changed, the activation profile structure is usually
modified.
Agents of the bottom layer are centered on ensuring their
own objective – eliminating congestions for their crossroad –
policy of a junction agent conflicts with that of another, the

1
phase 2 middle layer is solicited to resolve the conflict.
0.5
0
0
The middle layer of the architecture is composed by zone
20 40 60 80 100 120

1
phase 3 supervisors-agents. Such an agent is coordinating the
0.5 functioning of a physical traffic sub-network, mediating the
0
0 20 40 60
phase 4
80 100 120 conflicts between junction agents and furnishing them with
1
0.5
appropriate activation profiles for the critical zone regime.
0
0 20 40 60
phase 5
80 100 120
They can ensure an optimal functioning regime in terms of
1
0.5
maximal car flow in their supervised area, using different
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 control approaches such as Genetic Algorithms, fuzzy and
neural networks.
Fig.2: Activation profile sample
The top layer consists in a higher level supervisory agent and
The inner model of a junction agent contains structural coordinates zone supervisors, basically establishing, for
information about the physical structure of the crossroad it

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critical functioning contexts that cannot be solved otherwise, Main functionalities include:
degraded functioning regimes with preferential routes.
- configuration of junction agents, based on a library of
Zone supervisors are also dealing with priority vehicles, as generic agents; a generic agent has a given physical structure,
the higher level supervisor will solve problems related to represented by the number of input/ output roads, and number
grave accidents or infrastructure modifications. of light phases. The user can select a structure and configure
it by adding parametric information that define the basic
The architecture is conceived so as to allow the bottom layer
model of activation profiles (Figure 5)
to ensure a basic functioning even in situations in which
communication links between agents are broken, either
horizontally or vertically, by the basic contextual scenarios
(activation profiles) that are stored in the world model of
junction agents.
The software platform that will be presented in the following
was conceived with the main purpose to generate appropriate
contextual activation profiles, based on different contexts of
functioning (night/ day, rush hours, rain, snow etc.) as
reflected in input simulation data.

3. STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONING OF THE

SOFTWARE PLATFORM
The software platform was implemented in Java, using agent
programming concepts combined with classical object
programming. The multi-agent system was created using the
Fig. 5. Menu for creating an X- junction agent
JADE infrastructure which offers specific facilities for agent
creation and agent interaction. The concepts of Junction, - urban network design: the user is allowed to use junction
Input, Output, LightPhase, etc. were modeled as OOP agents to build urban networks by interconnecting them and
classes, which are integrated within the agent’s world model. specifying the parameters of the connections (as the capacity
of linking roads), as represented in figure 6; such networks
The traffic network is transposed into a community of agents,
can be saved/ loaded into a user-designed library. At this
belonging to the levels of junction agents and respectively
moment, an urban network is, with respect to the architecture
zone supervisor, which runs optimization algorithms and
specifications from the previous section, the subnet
coordinates the lower level agents. Initial values of the
controlled by a single zone supervisor; future work includes a
attributes are supplied by the user via the graphical user
module allowing interconnecting several zone supervisors.
interface, or derived by simple calculus from available data.
The block structure of the software platform is presented in
figure 4.

Fig.6: Interconecting junction agents

Fig.4: Software platform architecture
- simulation of different contextual scenarios, underlining
trends in the evolution of car queues for user-selected areas in
the urban network – Figure 7. In order to perform a
simulation, input data on car flows are needed which can
either be stored in data files, or be generated by the user.

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Control modules can be either used for exchanging a single
activation profile – for a given junction agent – or for
calculating globally adequate ones for groups of junction
agents, at the zonal supervisor agent level.
Fig.7.: Car queues representation in simulation
Simulation regime is used both for checking out the adequacy
of already designed activation profiles (Figure 8) and for
designing and testing context scenarios.
Fig.8: Specification of an activation profile
The graphical interface guides the user through the
application flow, from data acquisition to simulation and
visualization of results.
Preliminary studies of urban traffic regions simulations using
the software platform confirm the adequacy of the multi-
agent approach for the modeling and simulation of complex,
large scale systems.
The implicit modularity obtained by the multi-agent
implementation allows a functional decomposition leading to
a reduction of complexity without loss of generality. The
autonomous functioning of each agent combined with both
horizontal and vertical communication among working units
results in a complex, emergent behavior of the overall system
which could have hardly been modeled otherwise.
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4. CONTROL APPROACH FOR URBAN TRAFFIC
Given the complexity and the particularities of urban traffic
control and optimization problems, the latest research efforts
in the area of traffic control are directed towards the use of
artificial intelligence methods. Intelligent techniques
approaches have been successfully applied to traffic control
problems, such as rule-based systems for predefined plan
selection (Logi, F. & Ritchie, S.G., 2001), fuzzy rules control
systems (GiYoung 2001), neural networks (Spall 1994)
(Lopez 1999), or neuro-fuzzy systems (You-Sik 1999),
cellular automata modelling and evolutionary algorithms
optimization (Rouphail 2000), (Sanchez-Medina 2008).
The decentralized modeling approach presented in Section 2
transforms the congestion prevention into a green light
timings optimization problem, decomposable in multiple sub-
problems which can be solved at each layer in the hierarchy
of control.
The bottom layer agents work in the timeframe of the real
traffic environment, therefore their congestion prevention
mechanisms must be based on fast response, direct methods
derived from current measurements only. This is the reason
that they have either to slightly modify existing activation
profiles or select/request directly other profiles, based on
global values of input car flows.
In the case of junction agents, fuzzy logic is a powerful tool
for processing nondeterministic and non-linear problems,
such as that of adjusting green light timings according to the
conditions of traffic observed at any given moment. Traffic
control is generally expressed by rules, which makes fuzzy
rule-based signal control a plausible choice.
Membership functions are defined for crossroad lane queue
lengths using fuzzy terms such as “long-queue”, “short-
queue”. More green time is allocated for a lane if there are
many vehicles arriving in, and less green time otherwise.
The fuzzy local congestion prevention mechanism provides a
reasonable alternative when the bottom layer becomes
disconnected from superior command in the event of
whatever system or communication failure.
Simulation results prove satisfactory performance when the
traffic load is not critical. However, such local congestion
prevention mechanism does not guarantee a global solution
due to lack of spatial and temporal perspective. Therefore, to
optimize for global performances, the implementation of a
supervisor level is needed which will monitor, synchronize
and coordinate a group of junction agents in a given sub-
region.
The zonal supervisor works on a larger timescale,
implementing strategies to serve two main objectives:
• regional statistic estimation and prediction planning for
zonal optimization;
• conflict resolution if mutual agreement on green light
timings fails between any two junction agents on the
bottom layer.
In order to achieve zonal congestion prevention, genetic
algorithm (GA) optimization has been implemented, taking
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into account multiple (or all) junctions in the area of interest.
The optimization variables are the green phase timing lengths
for all junctions of interest. The total light phase duration is
also an optimization variable, aiming towards a balanced
traffic flow across the region.
− the default type double for chromosomes, within a
certain lower bound and upper bound [lb, ub]
derived from the time limits imposed on each phase;
− population size of 15 chromosomes;

The optimality of a solution is evaluated in terms of − a maximum number of 15 generations as a stopping

minimizing the weighted average of the waiting queue criterion or a maximum of 7 stall generations;
lengths on all road segments entering the junctions. − stochastic uniform selection function;
Communication between the layer of junction agents and the − adaptive feasible mutation, which randomly
zonal supervisors’ layer is bidirectional. The best solution generates directions that are adaptive with respect to
obtained by the zonal supervisor running the GA is the last successful or unsuccessful generation
communicated to the bottom layer junction agents and
applied in traffic, while data acquired from traffic is sent to Simulation results over the time-span of an hour are
upper layers to be used for prediction and planning. presented in Figures 10 a, b, and c. As can be seen, all input
queues remain consistently below a certain threshold
In this case we implemented prediction and planning by using considered as a percentual limit of the total road segment
real traffic data received from the junction agents and stored capacity (marked by a red horizontal line in all Figures).
as traffic history over a period of one month (data used was
from October 1st to October 31st of 2009). These data are
preprocessed in order to be used as model inputs for
simulating over one hour in the future to obtain a forecast of
the network behavior. Preprocessing implies various statistic
operations on the data in order to derive the most relevant
inputs according to the time of day and day of the week.
These data manipulations ensure that our simulations take
into account traffic load variations such as daytime vs.
nighttime traffic, work shifts: morning time vs. evening,
working days vs. weekends and holidays.
As a case study, we have chosen an urban area of three
interconnected junctions located in the center of Bucharest, as
depicted in Figure 9. Under current traffic conditions and
green light phase timings this small area is prone to
developing congestive traffic states.

Fig. 9. Case study

Fig.10: Simulation results
The genetic algorithm had the following options:
The computational and temporal requirements to reach a
solution by genetic algorithms need also to be taken into

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consideration to verify the feasibility of the implementation
in the real traffic environment.
The simulations presented above were done on a machine
with an Intel Core2 Duo CPU at 2.6GHz. The total run-time
was slightly below the time-span of the simulations with
possible overhead due to other Windows processes running.
Also, further code optimization may be possible.
5. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
The paper presents an agent-based hierarchical architecture
for simulation of an urban traffic network. The lower level of
the architecture, whose functioning was described, is
consisting in junction-agents, which are able to control one
single crossroad each.
Every agent is able to react to the dynamics of the input flows
of vehicles by controlling the light cycle of the junction in
order to avoid congestion on its inputs. Also, an agent
communicates with its peers that control neighboring
junctions, in order to exchange data on their respective output
flows, as they are provided by sensors.
Higher levels of the hierarchy are responsible with the
coordination of agents linked in traffic sub networks, acting
as zone supervisors and, for the last level, the general
network supervisor.
Agents can estimate the behavior of the controlled junctions
by simulation of formal models.
A software application allowing the user to build and
simulate urban traffic networks was designed to implement
the functions of the control architecture .
Future work is concerned with the development of Value
Judgment modules of lower layer agents, the improvement of
prediction and planning capabilities for zonal supervisors, as
well as with the design of the higher level supervisory agent
capable to use intelligent techniques in order to determine the
best parametric solution for junction model in a given
context.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The paper presents a part of the research performed in the
framework of the project “Intelligent techniques for
modeling, analysis and optimization of urban traffic” (TIME-
OUT – 7.1.108), financed by the National Centre of
Programme Management, Romania.
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