Received: 30 March 2022 Revised: 2 August 2022 Accepted: 22 August 2022 IET Intelligent Transport Systems

DOI: 10.1049/itr2.12264

ORIGINAL RESEARCH

Stochastic simulation-based optimization method for arterial

traffic signal coordination with equity and efficiency consideration

Liang Zheng1 Min Feng1 Xia (Sarah) Yang2 Xinfeng Xue3

1
School of Traffic & Transportation Engineering,
Central South University, Changsha, China
2
Key Laboratory of Road and Traffic Engineering of
Ministry of Education and College of Transportation
Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
3
Hunan Provincial Communications Planning,
Survey & Design Institute Co,Ltd, Changsha, China
Correspondence
Key Laboratory of Road and Traffic Engineering of
Ministry of Education and College of Transportation
Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
Email: xia_yang@tongji.edu.cn
Abstract
This study proposes an innovative stochastic simulation-based optimization (SSO) model
for arterial traffic signal coordination based on the ring-and-barrier diagram. The SSO
model takes the network traffic equity and the arterial traffic efficiency as the two objec-
tives, which are evaluated by the relative Gini index and the relative vehicular throughout,
respectively. Then a surrogate-based promising area search (SPAS) algorithm is developed
to solve the SSO model. The advantage of the SPAS algorithm is that the built-in shrinking
ball method and the promising area search technique help reduce the computational efforts
while appropriately capturing the stochasticity. Then some numerical experiments are con-
ducted based on a real-world urban arterial road with four signalized T-intersections and
field data in Nanchang, China. The numerical results show that the SSO model for arterial
traffic signal coordination can be well solved by the proposed SPAS algorithm and that
the relationship between the arterial traffic efficiency and the network traffic equity is not
completely competitive. Specifically, increasing the weight of arterial traffic efficiency from
0.5 can slightly improve the network traffic equity while significantly improving the arterial
traffic efficiency, providing significant guidance for real-world arterial signal coordination.

1 INTRODUCTION temporal, and/or demographic characteristics. For instance,

Arterial traffic signal coordination is one of the most criti-
cal research topics in traffic control. Most previous studies on
arterial traffic signal coordination focused on improving the
efficiency of the arterial traffic flow with little consideration for
the secondary roads, which could cause traffic inequity. Further,
the relationship between arterial traffic efficiency and network
traffic equity is unclear. Kotsialos et al. [1] and Kesten et al.
[2] concluded that the more efficient the traffic signal control
system, the lower the traffic equity, which indicated that traf-
fic efficiency and equity were competing, while Zhang et al. [3]
revealed that traffic efficiency and equity could be simultane-
ously improved. Thus, it gives us the motivation to consider
equity in arterial signal coordination and revisit the relationship
between the arterial traffic efficiency and the network traffic
equity.
Equity evaluation involves comparing the control effects
such as vehicle delays of two or more road user groups. In lit-
erature, road users can be categorized based on their spatial,
Levinson et al. [4] studied the temporal and spatial inequities
of ramp metering control. The former measured the equity
among users who had the same trip origin-destination (OD) but
departed the origin at different time intervals. The latter studied
the equity among users who departed in the same time interval
but with different OD pairs. Litman et al. [5] proposed the lat-
eral and vertical equity evaluation methods. The former treated
various user groups homogeneously, while the latter considered
their differences in income and social class or mobility need and
ability. In addition, various quantitative analysis methods have
been developed to assess traffic equity, which can be classified
as the statistical approach and the equity index-based approach.
On the one hand, the widely used statistical approaches include
analysis of variance (ANOVA) and regression analysis [6]. For
example, Delmelle et al. [7] employed the standard deviation
to assess the inequity of regional public transit demand/supply
gaps. Sider et al. [8] applied one-way ANOVA to evaluate the
inequity of exposure to traffic emissions among user groups
with different social disadvantage index values. Morency et al.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
© 2022 The Authors. IET Intelligent Transport Systems published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Institution of Engineering and Technology.

IET Intell. Transp. Syst. 2022;1–12. wileyonlinelibrary.com/iet-its 1

2 ZHENG ET AL.
[9] employed a multilevel Poisson regression model to explore
the inequality between wealthy and poor urban areas in traf-
fic injuries at intersections. On the other hand, equity indexes,
such as the Gini index [10] and Atkinson index [11], have been
widely used to measure traffic equity. For instance, studies by
Welch et al. [12], Kaplan et al. [13], and Gori et al. [14] used
Gini indexes to measure the equity performance of the public
transport system.
Furthermore, some equity index-based methods were applied
in some studies on traffic signal control optimization as well.
Yan et al. [15] optimized a signal control plan at an isolated
intersection by deep reinforcement learning with a reward func-
tion that measured efficiency and equity through the cumulative
throughput and a dedicated equity factor, respectively. Wen et al.
[16] employed a distributed reinforcement learning method to a
ramp metering problem, and the two objectives of the problem,
efficiency and equity, were captured by total time spent (TTS)
and the Gini index, respectively. Liang et al. [17] proposed a
real-time Connected Vehicle-based traffic signal control method
for an isolated intersection, and its objective was to minimize
the average vehicle delay and limit the maximum delay that
any individual vehicle may experience (i.e. an equity measure).
Zheng et al. [18] employed a bi-objective stochastic simulation-
based optimization (BOSSO) method to a network traffic signal
control problem with Atkinson index and travel time being
the equity and the efficiency evaluation measures, respectively.
Kesten et al. [2] employed various statistical and equity index-
based methods to judge the equity of traffic control strategies
in fixed-time ramp metering, including variance, covariance, rel-
ative mean difference, logarithmic variance, Gini coefficient,
Theil index, Atkinson index, and Kolm index. However, arterial
signal coordination with consideration for both efficiency and
equity remains to be studied to reveal the relationship between
the arterial traffic efficiency and the network traffic equity and
guide real-world arterial traffic signal coordination.
Previous methods to optimize arterial signal coordination
can be categorized as analytical modeling and simulation-based
method. Numerous studies have been carried out in the past
few years on arterial signal coordination optimization based on
analytical modeling. For instance, Chen et al. [19] maximized
the arterial progression band based on the set of “local bands”
related to the upstream and downstream traffic movements of
each link. Jing et al. [20] proposed a two-way signal progression
model to simultaneously optimize phase pattern choices from
overlapping phase or split phase, phase sequence, and offsets.
The above two studies have made achievements in the two-
way arterial signal control optimization by analytical modeling.
Additionally, with OD information extracted from automatic
number plate recognition (ANPR) data, Xu et al. [21] created
an OD-based multipath-band method to achieve a time-varying
arterial signal coordination plan. Their numerical results indi-
cated that the OD data helped a lot to create a time-varying
and Multipath-Band arterial coordination control. Islam et al.
[22] developed a mixed-integer linear mathematical program
with a penalty function for the vehicular energy consumption
constraint for the arterial signal control problem under uncer-
tainty and solved it by a stochastic gradient-based optimization
algorithm. Moreover, analytical modeling of arterial signal coor-
dination optimization under emerging traffic scenarios (such as
Connected Vehicle (CVs) or Connected and Autonomous Vehi-
cle (CAVs)) has attracted the attention of many researchers [23,
24, 25]. However, the analytical modeling method is challeng-
ing to fully capture the sophisticated relationships between the
signal control plans and network-wide traffic states. Further,
the research findings on CAVs and CVs are far from practical
implementation.
As analytical modeling usually makes some simplifications
and assumptions and can hardly fully capture the sophisticated
relationships between the signal control plans and network-
wide traffic states, the simulation-based method provides an
alternative way to flexibly design and simulate the complicated
interactions between various elements of the traffic control
system. For instance, Osorio et al. proposed a simulation-
based optimization (SO) method that embedded a surrogate
model integrating a simulation model and an analytical queue-
ing model [26] (or multiple simulation models [27]) within a
derivative-free trust region algorithm to address the traffic sig-
nal control problem and improve traffic efficiency. Additionally,
Osorio et al. employed the above surrogate model-based SO
method to address traffic signal control optimization prob-
lems under uncertainties with weighted objectives of travel time
and vehicular fuel consumption [28] (or vehicular emissions
[29]). Furthermore, Chen et al. [30] and Chong et al. [31] also
employed the above surrogate model-based SO method pro-
posed by Osorio et al. [26, 27, 28, 29] to address traffic signal
control optimization problems and made some achievements.
Chen et al. [30] addressed the challenging problem that involves
higher-order distributional information and uses the expecta-
tion and the standard deviation of travel times as one weighted
objective. Later, Chong et al. [31] addressed the time-dependent
traffic signal control problem with time-dependent continuous
decision variables to improve traffic efficiency. Recently, Zheng
et al. employed the BOSSO method to address network-wide
traffic signal control optimization problems under uncertainties
with weighted objectives of traffic efficiency and traffic equity
[18] (vehicular emissions [32] or traffic safety [33]). Additionally,
Zheng et al. [34] presented another stochastic simulation-
based optimization method named bi-objective surrogate-based
promising area search (BOSPAS) to solve an arterial signal con-
trol stochastic simulation-based optimization model with traffic
safety and efficiency as objectives. The SO method is different
from analytical mathematical programming in that an algebraic
description of a simulation is not required, and the simulation
can be viewed as a black box that only allows the evaluation
of objective functions and the constraints based on the inputs
[35]. By definition, the SO method refers to the optimization of
an objective function under certain constraints, both of which
can be evaluated through stochastic simulation. There are three
main SO methods: stochastic approximation methods (SA), ran-
dom search (RS), and response surface methodology (RSM)
[36].
First, SA estimates the gradient of the objective func-
tion through stochastic simulation and relies on averaging
to eliminate the estimation errors during the iteration [37,
ZHENG ET AL.
38]. There are some well-known variants of SA, including
Kesten’s rule [39] and simultaneous perturbation stochastic
approximation (SPSA) [40], as well as some other recently pro-
posed extensions such as scaled and shifted Kiefer–Wolfowitz
(SSKW) [41], robust stochastic approximation (RSA) [42], accel-
erated stochastic approximation (AC-SA) [43] for strongly
convex functions, and Secant-Tangents AveRaged stochastic
approximation (STAR-SA) [44]. Noteworthy, sample average
approximation (SAA) [45, 46] is another way to approximate the
points sampled. To transform a stochastic problem into a deter-
ministic one, SAA requires a large number of simulation efforts
for every point sampled. However, SAA is inferior to SA on
the asymptotic efficiency. As SA methods are easy to describe
and employ without dependence on gradient information, they
remain appealing. Second, RS performs a sequence of random
iterations to generate candidates and promising subsets to reach
the optimal solution. There are several typical RS methods,
including genetic algorithms (GA) [47, 48], simulated anneal-
ing [49, 50], Tabu search [51], Scatter search [52], shrinking ball
methods [53, 54], and COMPASS [55]. Specifically, the shrink-
ing ball method was first devised by Baumert and Smith [53].
It evaluates the objective value of a sampled solution by aver-
aging the performance of all solutions centred on the sampled
solution. This method of evaluating the objective function only
requires one simulation for each solution, which is suitable for
problems with a high computational cost. COMPASS [55] used
the most promising area technique to search for local optimal
solutions. Third, RSM aims at approximating the input-output
relationships of simulation by a surface (also known as a surro-
gate model) and then solving the surface with derivative-based
optimization methods. Surrogate models include the low-order
polynomials [56, 57, 58], spline models [59], radial basis func-
tions (RBFs) [60, 61, 62], and Kriging models [63, 64, 65]. In
recent years, researchers have paid more attention to designing
more efficient SO algorithms to address challenging problems
by combining SA, RS, and RSM. For instance, Zheng et al.
proposed a bi-objective robust simulation-based optimization
(BORSO) method to solve unconstrained problems involving
implementation errors and parameter perturbations, in which
the worst-case neighbours were first identified by a surrogate-
guided neighbourhood exploration and then excluded by a step
size along a robust local move direction [66]. Later, Zheng
et al. proposed a Surrogate-based Optimization algorithm with
Dynamic Adaptation of perturbation search of All Dimen-
sions (SODA-AD) to address high-dimensional mixed-integer
optimization problems [67].
To filter noises, most SO methods require multiple simula-
tions for each input. However, there is no doubt that multiple
simulations will extend the calculation time. We are fortunate to
observe a surrogate-based promising area search (SPAS) algo-
rithm proposed by Fan and Hu [68]. In detail, the shrinking
ball method avoids multiple simulations of the same solution.
The promising area search technique helps reduce computa-
tional efforts. Additionally, the surrogate model can predict the
response surface of the objective function based on historical
data samples. Further, SPAS relates to the algorithms developed
under the trust-region framework [69, 70, 71, 72], that is, esti-
3
mating the true response surface from a low-order surrogate
model over a trust-region and adjusting the size of that region
according to the quality of the estimation. However, SPAS
does not use gradient information, while the trust-region-based
methods rely on the twice differentiability of the objective func-
tion. Thus, we apply the SPAS algorithm to solve the proposed
model in this paper.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2
formulates the arterial traffic signal coordination SSO model
followed by the solution method SPAS. Section 3 presents some
real-field experiments using the SSO model and SPAS. Finally,
some major findings are concluded in Section 4.
2 METHODOLOGY
This section presents the methodology of the paper, including
the SSO model and the SPAS algorithm we have proposed. We
will first describe the two traffic indexes, that is, Gini Index
and vehicular throughout, to evaluate traffic network equity and
arterial efficiency, respectively. The objective of the SSO model
is to minimize the weighted sum of the relative network equity
and the relative arterial efficiency. Then we will list the deci-
sion variables of the SSO model based on the ring-and-barrier
diagram. After the model formulation, we present the SPAS
algorithm, which uses Kriging as the surrogate model.
2.1 Arterial traffic signal coordination
control optimization model
2.1.1 Traffic equity of network
Inspired by Zheng [18] which formulated the Atkinson index
to measure traffic equity using the travel time ratio, we use the
vehicle delay ratio to formulate the Gini index for the network
traffic equity evaluation. The vehicle delay ratio 𝜔i is calculated
by
di
𝜔i = , (1)
d̄Ji
where di is the delay of individual vehicle i, Ji denotes all the
routes connecting the origin and destination of vehicle i, and d̄Ji
is the mean vehicle delay of all the vehicles along Ji . Then, the
Gini index G (ω) based on vehicle delay ratio is formulated as
1 ∑m ∑ m
| |
G (𝜔 ) = |𝜔 − 𝜔 j | , (2)
2m2 𝜔̄ i = 1 j = 1 | i |
where m is the total number of vehicles of the traffic network
in a time interval, and 𝜔̄ is the mean of vehicle delay ratio of
the traffic network. G (ω) varies between 0 and 1. Moreover,
the lower the value of G (ω), the more equal the distribu-
tion of vehicle delay ratios and the better the traffic equity
in the study area. To describe the relative change of the net-
4 ZHENG ET AL.
work traffic equity for various traffic signal plans compared with
the real-world signal plan (RSP), the relative Gini index Gr is
given as
G
Gr = , (3)
G0
where G0 is the Gini index of the benchmark traffic signal plan,
that is, real-world traffic signal plan, evaluated by the calibrated
traffic simulator.
2.1.2 Traffic efficiency of the arterial roads
The vehicular throughout of arterial roads is employed to evalu-
ate the arterial traffic efficiency, which is the number of vehicles
that pass through the arterial roads in a time interval. Similarly,
to reflect the relative change of arterial traffic efficiency of vari-
ous traffic signal plans, the relative vehicular throughout of the
arterial roads Cr is formulated as
Cr = C0 ∕C , (4)
where C is vehicular throughout of arterial roads, and C0 is
the benchmark vehicular throughout of arterial roads, that is,
real-world traffic signal plan, evaluated by the calibrated traffic
simulator.
2.1.3 Weighted objective
The weighted sum of the relative Gini index Gr and the relative
vehicular throughout of the arterial road Cr is set as the objective
function of the arterial traffic signal control optimization and
formulated as
F = 𝜆Cr + (1 − 𝜆 ) Gr (5)
where parameter 𝜆 represents the weight of Cr with a range of
[0, 1], and (1 − 𝜆) represents the weight of Gr . In other words,
the larger the parameter 𝜆 the higher the weight placed on the
arterial traffic efficiency.
Inspired by Zhang et al. [73], the decision variable in this
study, that is, the signal control plan, is also described by
the standard ring-and-barrier structure defined by the National
Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) as shown in
Figure 1. Additionally, some important definitions in the ring-
and-barrier structure are given as follows. Firstly, eight phases
in total are assigned to two rings, and the front and rear phases
conflict with each other. Then, to ensure safety, barriers sepa-
rate phases of the major street and the minor street. Moreover,
barrier pair is two phases within the same ring and the same
barrier such as 𝜙1 and 𝜙2 in Figure 1. The phase sequence
within a barrier pair can be reversed without traffic conflict.
As a result, there are 16 different phase sequences for a four-
leg intersection, and 16n for arterial roads with n intersections.
Finally, the duration of each phase within a barrier pair can
FIGURE 1 Standard ring-and-barrier structure. Note: 𝜙 denotes the
signal phase
change flexibly as long as barrier pairs within the same barrier
end simultaneously.
Then, the decision variables in this study are expressed as x
T
= [sT , c, bT , tT , oT ] , xi ∈ [0, 1], i = 1, 2, … , dm, consisting
of five parts that are related to the phase sequence, the com-
mon cycle length, the phase timing, and the offsets, where dm is
the number of elements in x (i.e. the dimension of the decision
variable).
Phase sequence: Here, we use a 0–1 binary variable to rep-
resent the phase sequence. In a barrier pair, 1 means the odd
phase appears first while 0 means the even phase leads. As
a result, a four-digit binary variable is used to represent the
phase sequence of a four-leg intersection. For example, the
phase sequence shown in Figure 1 can be represented as a four-
T
digit binary code, that is, 1111. Let s = [s 1 , s 2 , … , s n ] , s i ∈
[0, 1], i = 1, 2, ⋯ , n, where s i denotes the phase sequence of
the ith signalized intersection. The process for getting the phase
sequence from s i is as follows. First, map s i to the range [0, 255]
which is the range of eight-digit binary in decimal notation, and
get sdei . This step aims to improve the accuracy. Then, we con-
vert sdei to an eight-digit binary format denoted by sbii . Finally,
the XOR operation is performed on sbii , resulting in a four-digit
binary variable corresponding to a certain phase sequence type.
Cycle length: In coordinated traffic signal control plans, all
signalized intersections share a common cycle length, which
satisfies
Cl = c ∗ ( Clmax − Clmin ) + Clmin , (6)
where Clmin and Clmax are the lower and upper bounds for
the common cycle length, respectively. c ∈ [0, 1] is the param-
eter setting the common cycle length Cl within the range
[Clmin , Clmax ].
Phase timing: Matrix PTn×8 represents the 8 phase tim-
ings of n signalize intersections along the arterial road. To
express PTn×8 , we first formulate the two vectors, that is,
T T
B1 = [B11 , B12 , … , B1n ] and B2 = [B21 , B22 , … , B2n ] as Equation
(7), which determines the two barrier lengths for n signalized
T
intersections, respectively. Then, let t = [tT1 , tT2 , tT3 , tT4 ] , where
ZHENG ET AL.
t1 , t2 , t3 , t4 ∈ (0, 1)n×1 are the first phase timing ratio of four
different barrier pairs, respectively. In detail, t1 and t2 are the
first phase timing ratios of two barrier pairs on major streets,
and t3 and t4 correspond to those on minor streets. Thus, PTn×8
are expressed as Equation (8).
B1 = b ∗ Cl , (7a)
B2 = (1 − b ) ∗ Cl , (7b)
PT = [B1 ◦t1 , B1 − B1 ◦t1 , B1 ◦t2 , B1 − B1 ◦t2 ,
B2 ◦t3 , B2 − B2 ◦t3 , B2 ◦t4 , B2 − B2 ◦t4 ], (8)
where b ∈ [0, 1]n×1 is the parameter vector to determine the
first barrier length of n signalized intersections. ◦ denotes the
Hadamard product (or Schur product), with the calculation rule
of A◦B = [ai j ⋅ bi j ] , in which A = [ai j ] and B =
m×k m×k
[bi j ] . gate model in the kth iteration. Λk denotes the set of sampled
m×k
Offset: Offset is a set for coordinating the signalized inter-
sections along the arterial road. According to previous studies
on arterial signal control optimization, it is a common practice
to set the first intersection as the reference intersection for the
absolute offset method [21, 74, 75]. So, this study applies the
absolute offset method and takes the first intersection in the
arterial road as the reference intersection. Then, the offset is
briefly formulated as
O = o ∗ Cl , (9)
where o ∈ (0, 1](n−1)×1 is the vector of offset ratios of signalized
intersections except the reference/master intersection.
Moreover, after elaborating the arterial coordinated sig-
T SPAS, respectively. The pseudocode of the SPAS algorithm is
nal control plan x = [sT , c, bT , tT , oT ] , the arterial signal
coordination SSO model is formulated as
min f (x, 𝜍 ) = 𝔼[F (x,𝜍)]
x∈𝕏
, (10)
s.t . Φ (x, 𝜍 ) → {Gr (x, 𝜍 ) , Cr (x, 𝜍 )}
where 𝕏 = {x ∶ a1 ≤ x ≤ b1 } is the search space of deci-
sion variables, a1 and b1 , respectively, are the lower and upper
bounds of the decision vector x with the dimension dm. 𝜍
represents the exogenous parameter vector involved in the
microscopic traffic simulation, which involves the fixed param-
eters and stochastic parameters (e.g. uncertainties on driving
behaviours and traffic demands). Φ(x, 𝜍) denotes the micro-
scopic traffic simulation with the inputs of x and 𝜍. →stands for
the output operator. Gr (x, 𝜍) = gr (x, 𝜍) + 𝛿a , 𝛿a ∼ N (0, 𝛿a2 )
and Cr (x, 𝜍) = cr (x, 𝜍) + 𝛿t , 𝛿t ∼ N (0, 𝛿t2 ). That is, Gr (x, 𝜍)
and Cr (x, 𝜍) are the simulator-evaluated values of the network
traffic equity and the arterial traffic efficiency with stochastic
noises. gr (x, 𝜍) and cr (x, 𝜍) are the true expected values. Two
random variables 𝛿a and 𝛿t are assumed to follow the normal
distribution. 𝔼[⋅] is the expectation operator. Thus, the SSO
5
model (10) aims to minimize F , which is a weighted sum of
the relative Gini index and the relative vehicular throughout. In
the following, we will put forward a surrogate-based promising
area search method to solve the model (10) that has stochastic
simulation noises and is computationally challenging.
2.2 SPAS algorithm
Different from the SPAS algorithm proposed by Fan and Hu
[68], this study proposes using the Kriging model as the sur-
rogate model instead of the radial base functions (RBFs). We
choose the Kriging model for the SPAS for two reasons. First, it
is an interpolation-based fitting strategy that meets the require-
ment mentioned in Fan and Hu [68]. Second, Kriging has higher
fitting accuracy when the dimension of decision variables is
relatively low, which satisfies the SSO model in this study.
Next, we briefly introduce the notation used in the SPAS
algorithm. xki denotes the i th sample selected in the kth iteration
and x∗k represents the optimal solution based on the surro-
solutions and Nk represents the number of candidate solu-
tions sampled at the kth iteration. Vk represents the collection
of all candidate solutions samples up to the kth iteration. sbk
denotes the simulation times up to the kth iteration and SB
is the simulation budget. {rk }k≥1 denotes a sequence of deter-
ministic positive real numbers to determine the radius of the
shrinking ball. B (x, r ) = {y ∈ 𝕏 ∶ d (x, y) < r} represents an
open ball of centre x and radius r. h(x) denotes the simula-
tion evaluation of sample point x. Pk denotes the promising area
determined by the kth iteration. d (x, y) represents the Euclidean
distance between two given points x and y in 𝕏, and d (x, A) =
in fy∈A d (x, y) represents the distance between a point x and the
set A for a set A ⊆ 𝕏. Finally, Sk and Pk ⊆ 𝕏 are the surrogate
model and the promising area constructed at the kth iteration of
given below.
Step 0: Initialization. Set k = 0, V0 = ∅, sb0 = 0, and
P0 = 𝕏. Specify {𝛼k }k≥1 satisfying 𝛼k ∈ [0, 1)∀k, and
{rk }k≥1 .
Step 1: Initial Evaluation by simulation. Let k = k + 1.
Sample Nk candidate solutions Λk = {xk1 , xk2 , … , xkN }
k
from the promising area Pk−1 and evaluate each
sample in Λk once by the simulator. Update Vk =
Vk−1 Λk and sbk = sbk−1 + Nk .
Step 2: Update the estimations of Vk . Use the shrinking
ball method to get H̃ k (x) as estimator for all x ∈ Vk as
follows:
∑ ( )
y∈B (x,rk )∩Vk h y
H̃ k (x ) = 𝛼k
|B (x, rk ) ∩ Vk |
∑ ( )
y∈B (x,rk )∩Λk h y
+ ( 1 − 𝛼k ) , (11)
|B (x, rk ) ∩ Λk |
where |A| denotes the cardinality of a set A.
6 ZHENG ET AL.
Step 3: Build a Kriging surrogate model: Fit a Kriging
model Sk (x) for (x, H̃ k (x)).
Step 4: Search for the optimal solution x∗k based on
Kriging by GA: x∗k = argminx∈P Sk (x).
k−1
Step 5: Update promising area Pk according to the
∗
optimal solution xk . To ensure that the samples in the
promising area are closer to the current center point
x∗k than the historical sample points, the new promising
area Pk is constructed as follows:
{ ( ) ( ) } an hour) and the effective simulation period. Furthermore, we
Pk = y ∈ 𝕏 ∶ d x∗k , y < d x, y , x ∈ ∀Vk .
(12)
Step 6: Reiterate from Step 1 and finally output the
optimal solution until sbk ≥ SB.
In detail, the SPAS algorithm starts with the entire solution
space as the initial promising area. Then it samples from the
new promising area, which is updated based on all the histori-
cal samples and their performance estimations. To address the
bias issue from the correlated samples in Vk , Fan and Hu [68]
proposed taking the convex combination of the average of the
simulation evaluations of samples in B(x, rk ) ∩ Vk and the aver-
age of the simulation evaluations of samples in B(x, rk ) ∩ Λk
as the estimator, that is, Equation (11). To be specific, the bias
∑
h(y)
effect of the first average 𝛼k
y∈B(x,rk )∩Vk
is discounted by the
|B(x,rk )∩Vk |
weight 𝛼k whose value decreases with iterations.
3 NUMERICAL EXPERIMENTS
In the study, some numerical experiments are conducted on an
urban arterial road in Nanchang, China. We first model the arte-
rial road by VISSIM and calibrate the traffic simulation model
using field data. Then, based on the calibrated traffic simulator,
we use the proposed SPAS algorithm to solve the arterial sig-
nal coordination control optimization problem. In addition, we
conduct a series of numerical experiments to validate that the
arterial signal coordination SSO model can be well solved by the
SPAS algorithm, and conclude that the arterial traffic efficiency
and the network traffic equity can be simultaneously improved
in various degrees by adjusting the weights of two objectives.
3.1 Construction and calibration of the
traffic simulation model
First, an urban arterial road in Nanchang, China is modeled by
VISSIM, which includes 4 signalized intersections (with 12 sig-
nal phases), 6 entries, and 6 exits as shown in Figure 2. Note that
no other traffic control facilities (such as dedicated bus lanes
and reversible lanes) but traffic lights exist on the road network
of the numerical experiments. Additionally, due to limited data
accessibility, we only consider cars as the road users in the study.
The input data for traffic simulation is an OD matrix as shown
in Table 1, which is calculated from the field OD demand data
during the morning peak period (7:30–9:00 a.m.) for 14 work-
days in 2017. The traffic demand of each OD pair is assumed to
follow a normal distribution with a mean and a variance as given
in Table 1. Additionally, the uncertainties in traffic demands are
the stochasticity source in the traffic simulation. Then, we set
the simulation time for a single run as one and a half hours in
the real world consisting of the warm-up period (the first half
adopt the calibration process presented in Xue et al. [76] and
have calibrated three parameters including the average parking
distance (1.0m), the additional part of the safety distance (2.3m),
and the multiple parts of the safety distance (10.0m).
In addition, as shown in Figure 3, there are only two
phase sequence alternatives for each intersection on Ganjiang
Middle Avenue since all the four signalized intersections are
T-shaped intersections. Hence, the decision variable can be
T
expressed as x = [s, c, bT , tT , oT ] = [x1 , x2 , … , x13 ]T , s =
x1 , c = x2 , b = [x3 , x4 , x5 , x6 ]T , t = [x7 , x8 , x9 , x10 ]T and
o = [x11 , x12 , x13 ]T , xi ∈ [0, 1], i = 1, 2, … 13. As the real-
world signal cycle length is 120 and 130, we set Clmin and Clmax
as 60 and 180, respectively. According to the parameters set-
ting given by Fan and Hu [68], the critical parameters√of the
SPAS method in this study are set as follows: Nk = max( k, 4),
𝛼k = ln(100) ∕ln(100 + k), SB = 800, and rk = a∕k0.49∕d
where the choice of a depends on the size of the decision space
𝕏 and its value is set as 50% of the maximum length of the
variable ranges in 𝕏.
3.2 Arterial traffic signal coordination
optimization
Taking the calibrated arterial road traffic simulator as the eval-
uation tool, we obtain optimized signal control plans under
five scenarios with the weights of the arterial traffic efficiency
𝜆 set as 1, 0.8, 0.5, 0.2 and 0, respectively. The five opti-
mized signal control plans are named SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4, and
SP5, which are attached in Table A1 in Appendix A together
with the RSP. The SPAS algorithm for signal control optimiza-
tion converges at around the three hundredth iteration. For
example, Figure 4 gives the convergence curve when 𝜆 = 0.8
where the sudden jump in function value after 300 iterations can
be explained by the inherent stochasticity of the problem.
Table 2 indicates that the three traffic performance indi-
cators Fr , Cr and Gr of are simultaneously improved by the
five optimized signal control plans in various degrees. CRA =
(A − ARSP ) / ARSP , where CRA represents the percentage
change in the traffic performance indicator A (e.g. Fr , Cr and
Gr ), and ARSP represents the simulation evaluation value of
the performance index A under RSP. Note that the relative
vehicular throughout Cr of SP5 exceeds 1, which is because the
weight of Cr in SP5 is set as 0. In detail, the relative vehicular
throughout of the arterial roads Cr and the relative Gini index
Gr are improved by at most 27.86% and 45.18%, respectively.
ZHENG ET AL. 7

FIGURE 2 Selected study site, (a) Satellite map, (b) VISSIM model of the road network. Note: Numbers 1–6 indicate the six origins or destinations, and the
arterial road is Ganjiang Middle Ave.

FIGURE 3 Two types of ring-and-barrier structures for T-shape signalized intersections.

TABLE 1 Mean and variance of OD traffic demand during 7:30–9:00 a.m.

for 14 workdays

@ D 1 2 3 4 5 6
O @
@
1 – (550, 67) (840, 102) (335, 41) (545, 66) (762, 92)
2 (123,15) – (80, 10) (69, 9) (134, 16) (175,21)
3 (465, 57) (129, 16) – (66, 8) (158, 19) (224, 27)
4 (39,5) (18, 2) (9, 1) – (12, 1) (16, 2)
5 (598, 73) (263, 32) (251, 30) (133, 16) – (573, 70)
6 (735,89) (318, 39) (318, 39) (178, 22) (420, 51) –

Additionally, the relationship between Cr and Gr is nearly com-

petitive, that is, the arterial traffic efficiency and the network
traffic equity are competitive with each other on a certain level.

FIGURE 4 Convergence performance of SPAS for signal coordination

3.3 Comparison of traffic signal plans under
stochastic noise
To further test the effectiveness of the optimized traffic sig-
nal plans, we have conducted 100 independent and repeated
experiments for each of the above five traffic signal plans with
some numerical results shown in Figure 5. Though the vehic-
optimization
ular throughout of the arterial road and the Gini index slightly
vary across the 100 experiments, two major observations can be
made from Figure 5. First, the arterial traffic efficiency improves
with the increase of parameter 𝜆 and four out of the five signal
8 ZHENG ET AL.

FIGURE 5 Distribution of numerical results of 100 independent and repeated experiments for each traffic signal plan. (a) The vehicular throughout of the
arterial road (veh/h), (b) Gini index. Note: The boxes cover the results between the 25th and 75th percentiles, in which the lines in boxes represent the medians, the
dotted lines encompass the overall range

TABLE 2 Numerical comparisons for signal control plans

Signal control
plan (Fr , CRFr ) (Cr , CRCr ) (Gr , CRGr )

RSP (1,0) (1,0) (1,0)

SP1 (𝜆 = 1) (0.7214, 27.86%↓) (0.7214, 27.86%↓) (0.8643, 13.57%↓)
SP2 (𝜆 = 0.8) (0.7569, 24.31%↓) (0.7297, 27.03%↓) (0.8657, 13.42%↓)
SP3 (𝜆 = 0.5) (0.8391, 16.09%↓) (0.8670, 13.30%↓) (0.8113, 18.87%↓)
SP4 (𝜆 = 0.2) (0.6120, 38.80%↓) (0.8670, 13.30%↓) (0.5482, 45.18%↓)
SP5 (𝜆 = 0) (0.6648, 33.52%↓) (1.5670, 56.70%↑) (0.6648, 33.52%↓)

Note: ↑ and ↓ indicate the increase and decrease in Fr , Cr and Gr compared with RSP,
respectively.

control plans perform better than the RSP in arterial traffic

efficiency. Note that SP5 sets efficiency weight 𝜆 = 0 which
sacrifices the arterial traffic efficiency for the network traffic
equity. Second, the Gini index does not strictly increase with
the increase of 𝜆, that is, the network traffic equity does not
strictly decrease with the increase of 𝜆. This can be explained by
that high traffic volume on the arterial road with similar delays
contributes to lowering the network Gini index value. Specifi-
cally, increasing the value of 𝜆 from 0.5 can slightly improve the
network traffic equity while significantly improving the arterial
traffic efficiency performance. This indicates that the relation-
ship between arterial traffic efficiency and network traffic equity
is not entirely competitive. Thus, the arterial traffic efficiency
and the network traffic equity can be simultaneously improved
in various degrees under stochastic noises by adjusting the
weights of the two objectives, providing significant guidance
for real-world arterial signal coordination. We further present
Figure 6 to show the improvement percentages in the average
vehicular throughout of arterial road and the average Gini index
of the five optimized traffic signal plans compared with the RSP.
As it can be observed in Figure 6, with the decreasing weight
placed on the arterial traffic efficiency, the improvement degree
of the average vehicular throughout of the arterial road is
FIGURE 6 Improvement percentages of two objectives under five
optimized traffic signal plans compared with the RSP
decreasing while that of the average Gini index decreases slightly
first and then increases. This in fact implies that the bi-objective
indices have a competing relationship at some degree for SP1 to
SP5. That is also to say, one objective performance may be sac-
rificed to improve the other objective performance if a higher
weight is placed on the other objective when carrying out the
optimization of the signal control plan. In practice, as the effi-
ciency and equity performance may vary by both the weights
and the demand profiles, the numerical results can provide help-
ful guidance for traffic practitioners to appropriately select the
weights of the arterial traffic efficiency and the network traf-
fic equity based on the social requirements or preferences for
efficiency and equity.
To further compare the traffic efficiency performance of each
traffic signal plan, we have added two additional performance
ZHENG ET AL.
TABLE 3 Numerical comparisons for signal control plans
Signal control
plan (MDart , CRMDart )
RSP (686,0)
SP1 (112, 83.67%↓)
SP2 (314, 54.23%↓)
SP3 (213, 68.95%↓)
SP4 (504, 26.53%↓)
SP5 (556, 18.95%↓)
Note: ↑ and ↓ indicate the increase and decrease in in MDart and MDnet compared with RSP,
respectively.
indicators MDart and MDnet as (13) and (14).
1 ∑
C
MDart = d,
C i=1 i
1 ∑
m
MDnet = d,
m i=1 i
where MDart and MDnet represent the average delays of vehicles
on the arterial road and on the road network within the effective
simulation period, respectively. The comparison of MDart and
MDnet for SP1 to SP5 is presented in Table 3, from which two
major observations can be made. First, the five optimized signal
plans perform better than the RSP in both MDart and MDnet .
Specifically, SP1 gives the maximum arterial traffic throughout
C as well as the least MD art and MD net , which shows the effec-
tiveness of the proposed model in optimizing the arterial traffic
signal coordination. As for SP5, we placed the largest weight
(i.e., 1) on traffic equity and then obtained the largest improve-
ment degree of the Gini index. While the average delay of SP5
is almost the highest and the improvement degree is almost the
smallest among SP1 to SP5. This in fact accord with the com-
petitive relationship between the arterial traffic efficiency and
the network equity and it is reasonable. Second, the percent-
age change of both MDart and MDnet increase roughly with the
increase of parameter 𝜆. Thus, MDart and MDnet can be simul-
taneously improved in various degrees under stochastic noises
by adjusting the weights of the two objectives. The numerical
experiment results can assist the traffic management depart-
ment to reasonably set the weights of the two objectives based
on the real-world requirements.
To demonstrate the implementation effects of the RSP and
the above five optimized traffic signal plans in a more intuitive
manner, we have plotted the vehicles’ space-time trajectories in
the busier direction of the arterial road as shown in Figure 7.
Only vehicles entering and leaving the network within the effec-
tive simulation period 1800s to 5400s will be recorded, and
the first 1800s is the warm-up period to produce a stable
road network. In addition, a steeper trajectory line indicates a
shorter average vehicle delay and more trajectory lines indicate
larger traffic volume throughout the arterial road. According to
Figure 7a, traffic flow on the arterial road is severely congested
under the RSP, with small vehicular throughout, long delays, and
9
frequent stops along the arterial. It can be noticed that the actual
traffic signal plan along the arterial is so poorly designed that the
(MDart , CRMDnet ) arterial gets incredibly congested and vehicles stop frequently
on the road sections, leading to frequent stagnations and thus
(441,0)
less noticeable delays at signalized intersections. Additionally,
(154, 65.08%↓)
Figure 7b–f present the vehicle trajectories of the SP1 to SP5,
(304, 31.07%↓) respectively, and the SP1 to SP5 all show shorter arterial vehicle
(304, 31.07%↓) delay and higher traffic volume than the RSP.
(384, 12.93%↓)
(382, 13.38%↓)
4 CONCLUSION
The traffic right-of-way equity has attracted more and more
attention from both traffic management agencies and scholars
in recent years. In the study, we have built an innovative SSO
model for arterial signal coordination, which can appropriately
consider both the network traffic equity and the arterial traf-
(13) fic efficiency. The objective is to minimize the weighted sum
of the relative Gini index and the relative vehicular throughout,
which are used to evaluate the network traffic equity and the
(14) arterial traffic efficiency, respectively. Next, the SPAS algorithm
is developed to solve the proposed model, which consists of the
shrinking ball method, a surrogate model, and the promising
area searching method. Compared with traditional SSO solu-
tion methods, the proposed SPAS is much superior with the
following three main advantages. First, its build-in shrinking ball
method avoids multiple simulations of the same solution, which
significantly reduce the computational cost. Second, using the
surrogate model can predict the response surface based on
historical samples and find the current optimal solution, thus
identifying the current promising area without excessive simu-
lation costs. Moreover, the SPAS concentrates the computation
power on the promising area determined by historic samples
and their performance estimations, which significantly speeds
up the algorithm convergence. Further, we choose the Kriging
model as the surrogate model for SPAS as it has higher fitting
accuracy when the dimension of decision variables is relatively
low.
We have also conducted some numerical experiments based
on a real-world arterial road with four T-shaped signalized inter-
sections and field data in Nanchang, China to test and validate
the superiority of the proposed SSO model and SPAS algo-
rithm. In the numerical experiments, the arterial is first modeled
with some related parameters calibrated by the traffic simula-
tion software VISSIM. Based on the calibrated traffic simulator,
we solve the SSO problem by the SPAS algorithm. The numer-
ical results show that the arterial vehicular throughout can be
increased by at most 61.48% and the Gini index can be reduced
by at most 55.11%. Moreover, the network traffic equity and
the arterial traffic efficiency are not necessarily in a competi-
tive relationship. Specifically, if more weight is placed on arterial
efficiency (i.e., 𝜆 ≥ 0.5), both arterial efficiency and network
equity can be improved with the increase of 𝜆. The numeri-
cal results demonstrate that both the arterial traffic efficiency
and the network traffic equity can be simultaneously improved
in various degrees by adjusting the weights of two objec-
tives, providing significant guidance for real-world arterial signal
coordination.
10 ZHENG ET AL.

FIGURE 7 Space-time vehicular trajectories in one direction of the arterial road of six signal control plans. (a) RSP, (b) SP1, (c) SP2, (d) SP3, (e) SP4, (f) SP5.
Notes: the numbers of trajectory lines form (a) to (f), respectively, are 135, 417, 362, 371, 302, 207

Last but not least, two future research directions are listed
as below. First, this study only considers car-based users and it
is interesting to study how traffic equity can be modeled when
different user classes/vehicles (such as buses and emergency
vehicles) simultaneously exist on road networks. Second, we can
also study how various traffic control facilities such as dedi-
cated bus lanes and reversible lanes will affect the relationship
between the arterial traffic efficiency and the network traffic
equity.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of
Hunan Province (Grant No. 2021JJ30888), the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71871227, 52072264),
the Innovation Driven Plan of Central South University (Grant
No. 2019CX018) and the Excellent Youth Foundation of
Hunan Education Department (Grant No. 21B0015).
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were
generated or analysed during the current study.
ORCID
Xinfeng Xue https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6536-6690
ZHENG ET AL.
REFERENCES
1. Kotsialos, A., Papageorgiou, M.: Efficiency and equity properties of free-
way network-wide ramp metering with AMOC. Transp. Res. Part C:
Emerging Technologies. 12(6), 401–420 (2004).
2. Kesten, A.S., Ergün, M., Yai, T.: An analysis on efficiency and equity of
fixed-time ramp metering. Journal of Transportation Technologies. 3(2A),
48–56 (2013).
3. Zhang, H.M., Shen, W.: Access control policies without inside queues:
Their properties and public policy implications. Transp. Res. Part B:
Methodological. 44(8-9), 1132–1147 (2010).
4. Levinson, D., Zhang, L.: Ramp meters on trial: Evidence from the
Twin Cities metering holiday. Transport. Res. Part A 40 (10), 810–828
(2006).
5. Litman, T. Evaluating Transportation Equity: Guidance for Incorporat-
ing Distributional Impacts in Transportation Planning, Research Report.
Victoria Transport Policy Institute, Victoria, BC, Canada (2007).
6. Guo, Y., Chen, Z., Stuart, A., Li, X., Zhang, Y.: A systematic overview
of transportation equity in terms of accessibility, traffic emissions, and
safety outcomes: From conventional to emerging technologies. Transp.
Res. Interdisciplinary Perspectives 4, 100091 (2020). https://doi.org/10.
1016/j.trip.2020.100091.
7. Delmelle, E.C., Casas, I.: Evaluating the spatial equity of bus rapid transit-
based accessibility patterns in a developing country: The case of Cali,
Colombia. Transport Policy 20, 36–46 (2012).
8. Sider, T., Hatzopoulou, M., Eluru, N., Goulet-Langlois, G., Manaugh, K.:
Smog and socioeconomics: An evaluation of equity in traffic-related air
pollution generation and exposure. Environment and Planning B: Planning
and Design 42(5), 870–887 (2015).
9. Morency, P., Gauvin, L., Plante, C., Fournier, M., Morency, C.: Neigh-
borhood social inequalities in road traffic injuries: the influence of traffic
volume and road design. Am. J. Public Health 102(6), 1112–1119 (2012).
10. Gini, C.: On the measure of concentration with special reference to income
and statistics. Colorado College Publication, General Series No. 208(1),
73–79 (1936).
11. Atkinson, A.B.: On the measurement of inequality. J. Econom. Theory,
2(3), 244–263 (1970).
12. Welch, T.F., Mishra, S.: A measure of equity for public transit connectivity.
Journal of Transport Geography 33, 29–41 (2013).
13. Kaplan, S., Popoks, D., Prato, C.G., Ceder, A.A.: Using connectivity for
measuring equity in transit provision. Journal of Transport Geography 37,
82–92 (2014).
14. Gori, S., Mannini, L., Petrelli, M.: Equity measures for the identification
of public transport needs. Case Studies on Transport Policy 8(3), 745–757
(2020).
15. Yan, S., Zhang, J., Büscher, D., Burgard, W.: Efficiency and equity are
both essential: A generalized traffic signal controller with deep reinforce-
ment learning. In: 2020 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent
Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 5526–5533. IEEE, Piscataway(2020).
16. Wen, K., Yang, W., Qu, S.: Efficiency and equity based freeway traffic net-
work flow control. In: 2nd International Conference on Computer and
Automation Engineering (ICCAE), vol. 5, pp. 453–456. IEEE, Piscataway
(2010).
17. Liang, X.J., Guler, S.I., Gayah, V.V.: An equitable traffic signal con-
trol scheme at isolated signalized intersections using Connected Vehicle
technology. Transp. Res. Part C: Emerging Technologies 110, 81–97
(2020).
18. Zheng, L., Xue, X., Xu, C., Ran, B.: A stochastic simulation-based opti-
mization method for equitable and efficient network-wide signal timing
under uncertainties. Transp. Res. Part B: Methodological 122, 287–308
(2019).
19. Chen, Y., Cheng, Y.: Design of an arterial signal progression plan for multi-
path flows with only intersection turning counts. Transp. Res. Part C 130,
103322 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2021.103322.
20. Jing, B., Lin, Y., Shou, Y., Lu, K., Xu, J.Pband: A general signal progression
model with phase optimization along urban arterial. IEEE Trans. Intell.
Transp. Syst. 23(1), 344–354 (2020).
21. Xu, L., Xu, J., Qu, X., Jin, S.: An origin-destination demands-based
multipath-band approach to time-varying arterial coordination. IEEE
11
Trans. Intell. Transp. Syst. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1109/TITS.2022.
3150977
22. Islam, S.B.A., Aziz, H.A., Hajbabaie, A.: Stochastic gradient-based opti-
mal signal control with energy consumption bounds. IEEE Trans. Intell.
Transp. Syst. 22(5), 3054–3067 (2020).
23. Qian, G., Guo, M.: Traffic scheduling and control in fully connected
and automated networks. Transp. Res. Part C 126(2021), 103011 (2021).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2021.103011.
24. Wang, Q., Yuan, Y., Yang, X.T., Huang, Z.: Adaptive and multi-path pro-
gression signal control under connected vehicle environment. Transp. Res.
Part C: Emerging Technologies 124, 102965 (2021). https://doi.org/10.
1016/j.trc.2021.102965.
25. Yang, Z., Feng, Y., Liu, H.X.: A cooperative driving framework for
urban arterials in mixed traffic conditions. Transp. Res. part C: emerg-
ing technologies 124, 102918 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2020.
102918.
26. Osorio, C., Bierlaire, M.: A simulation-based optimization framework for
urban transportation problems. Oper. Res. 61(6), 1333–1345 (2013).
27. Osorio, C., Selvam, K.K.: Simulation-based optimization: Achieving
computational efficiency through the use of multiple simulators. Trans-
portation Science 51(2), 395–411 (2017).
28. Osorio, C., Nanduri, K.: Energy-efficient urban traffic management: A
microscopic simulation-based approach. Transportation Science 49(3),
637–651 (2015).
29. Osorio, C., Nanduri, K.: Urban transportation emissions mitigation: Cou-
pling high-resolution vehicular emissions and traffic models for traffic
signal optimization. Transp. Res. Part B: Methodological 81, 520–538
(2015).
30. Chen, X., Osorio, C., Santos, B.F.: Simulation-based travel time reliable
signal control. Transportation Science 53(2), 523–544 (2019).
31. Chong, L., Osorio, C.: A simulation-based optimization algorithm
for dynamic large-scale urban transportation problems. Transportation
Science 52(3), 637–656 (2018).
32. Zheng, L., Xu, C., Jin, P.J., Ran, B.: Network-wide signal timing stochastic
simulation optimization with environmental concerns. Appl. Soft Comput.
77, 678–687 (2019).
33. Zheng, L., Yang, Y., Xue, X., Li, X., Xu, C.: Towards network-wide safe
and efficient traffic signal timing optimization based on costly stochastic
simulation. Physica A 571, 125851 (2021).
34. Zheng, L., Li, X.: Simulation-based optimization method for arterial signal
control considering traffic safety and efficiency under uncertainties. Com-
put. Aided Civ. Infrastruct. Eng. 1–20 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1111/
mice.12876
35. Amaran, S., Sahinidis, N.V., Sharda, B., Bury, S.J.: Simulation optimization:
a review of algorithms and applications. Annals of Oper. Res. 240(1), 351–
380 (2016).
36. Fu, C.M.: Handbook of Simulation Optimization. Springer, New York
(2015).
37. Robbins, H., Monro, S.: A stochastic approximation method. The annals
of mathematical statistics 22(3), 400–407 (1951).
38. Kiefer, J., Wolfowitz, J.: Stochastic estimation of the maximum of a
regression function. The Annals of Mathematical Statistics 23(3), 462–466
(1952).
39. Kesten, H.: Accelerated stochastic approximation. The Annals of Mathe-
matical Statistics 29(1), 41–59 (1958).
40. Spall, J.: Multivariate stochastic approximation using a simultaneous per-
turbation gradient approximation. IEEE Trans. Autom. Control. 37(3),
332–341 (1992).
41. Broadie, M., Cicek, D.: General bounds and finite-time improvement
for the Kiefer-Wolfowitz stochastic approximation algorithm. Oper. Res.
59(5):1211–1224 (2011).
42. Nemirovski, A., Juditsky, A., Lan, G., Shapiro, A.: Robust stochastic
approximation approach to stochastic programming. SIAM J. Optim.
19(4), 1574–1609 (2009).
43. Ghadimi, S., Lan, G.: Optimal stochastic approximation algorithms for
strongly convex stochastic composite optimization II: Shrinking pro-
cedures and optimal algorithms. SIAM J. Optim. 23(4), 2061–2089
(2013).
12
44. Chau, M., Qu, H., Fu, M.C.: A new hybrid stochastic approximation
algorithm. IFAC Proceedings Volumes 47(2), 241–246 (2014).
45. Kleywegt, A.J., Shapiro, A., Homem-de-Mello, T.: The sample aver-
age approximation method for stochastic discrete optimization. SIAM J.
Optim. 12(2), 479–502 (2002).
46. Kim, S., Pasupathy, R., Henderson, S.G.: A guide to sample average
approximation. In: Fu, M.C. (ed.) Handbook of Simulation Optimization,
pp. 207–243. Springer, New York (2015).
47. Reeves, C.R.: Genetic algorithms for the operations researcher. INFORMS
Journal on Computing 9(3), 231–250 (1997).
48. Whitley, D.: A genetic algorithm tutorial. Statistics and Computing 4, 65–
85 (1994).
49. Alrefaei, M.H., Andradóttir, S.: A simulated annealing algorithm with con-
stant temperature for discrete stochastic optimization. Manage. Sci. 45,
748–764 (1999).
50. Bertsimas, D., Tsitsiklis, J.: Simulated annealing. Statistical Science 8(1), 10–
15 (1993).
51. Glover, F.: Tabu search: A tutorial. Interfaces 20(4), 77–94 (1990).
52. Glover, F., Laguna, M.: Fundamentals of scatter search and path relinking.
Control and Cybernetics 29(3), 653–684 (2000).
53. Baumert, S., Smith, R.L.: Pure random search for noisy objective functions.
Technical Report. University of Michigan (2002).
54. Andradóttir, S., Prudius, A.A.: Adaptive random search for continu-
ous simulation optimization. Nav. Res. Logist. (NRL) 57(6), 583–604
(2010).
55. Hong, L.J., Nelson, B.L.: Discrete optimization via simulation using
COMPASS. Oper. Res. 54(1), 115–129 (2006).
56. Kleijnen, J.P.: Response surface methodology for constrained simulation
optimization: An overview. Simul. Modell. Pract. Theory. 16(1), 50–64
(2008).
57. Conn, A.R., Scheinberg, K., Vicente, L.N.: Global convergence of general
derivative-free trust-region algorithms to first-and second-order critical
points. SIAM J. Optim. 20(1), 387–415 (2009).
58. Ryu, J.H., Kim, S.: A derivative-free trust-region method for biobjective
optimization. SIAM J. Optim. 24(1), 334–362 (2014).
59. Barton, R.R., Meckesheimer, M.: Metamodel-based simulation optimiza-
tion. Handbooks in operations research and Manage. Sci. 13, 535–574
(2006).
60. Regis, R.G., Shoemaker, C.A.: Constrained global optimization of expen-
sive black box functions using radial basis functions. J. Global Optim.
31(1), 153–171 (2005).
61. Wild, S.M., Regis, R.G., Shoemaker, C.A.: ORBIT: Optimization by radial
basis function interpolation in trust-regions. SIAM J. Sci. Comput. 30(6),
3197–3219 (2008).
62. Oeuvray, R., Bierlaire, M.: BOOSTERS: A derivative-free algorithm
based on radial basis functions. Int. J. Model. Simul. 29(1), 26–36
(2009).
63. Booker, A.J., Dennis, J.E., Frank, P.D., Serafini, D.B., Torczon, V., Trosset,
M.W.: A rigorous framework for optimization of expensive functions by
surrogates. Structural optimization 17(1), 1–13 (1999).
ZHENG ET AL.
64. Booker, A.J., Dennis, J.E., Frank, P.D., Serafini, D.B., Torczon, V., Trosset,
M.W.: A rigorous framework for optimization of expensive functions by
surrogates. Structural optimization 17(1), 1–13 (1999).
65. He, X., Chen, X., Xiong, C., Zhu, Z., Zhang, L.: Optimal time-varying
pricing for toll roads under multiple objectives: a simulation-based
optimization approach. Transportation Science 51(2), 412–426 (2017).
66. Zheng, L., Bao, J., Xu, C., Tan, Z.: Biobjective robust simulation-based
optimization for unconstrained problems. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 299(1), 249–
262 (2022).
67. Zheng, L., Yang, Y., Fu, G., Tan, Z., Cen, X.: A surrogate-based optimiza-
tion method with dynamic adaptation for high-dimensional mixed-integer
problems. Swarm and Evol. Comput. 101099 (2022). https://doi.org/10.
1016/j.swevo.2022.101099.
68. Fan, Q., Hu, J.: Surrogate-based promising area search for lipschitz con-
tinuous simulation optimization. INFORMS Journal on Computing 30(4),
677–693 (2018).
69. Deng, G., Ferris, M.C.: Variable-number sample-path optimization. Math.
Program. 117(1), 81–109 (2009).
70. Chang, K.H., Hong, L.J., Wan, H.: Stochastic trust-region response-surface
method (STRONG)—A new response-surface framework for simula-
tion optimization. INFORMS Journal on Computing 25(2), 230–243
(2013).
71. Larson, J., Billups, S.C.: Stochastic derivative-free optimization using a trust
region framework. Computational Optimization and applications 64(3),
619–645 (2016).
72. Chen, R., Menickelly, M.: Stochastic optimization using a trust-region
method and random models. Math. Programming 169(2), 447–487 (2017).
73. Zhang, L., Yin, Y., Chen, S.: Robust signal timing optimization with envi-
ronmental concerns. Transp. Res. Part C: Emerging Technologies 29,
55–71 (2013).
74. Gomes, G.: Bandwidth maximization using vehicle arrival functions. IEEE
Trans. Intell. Transp. Syst. 16(4), 1977–1988 (2015).
75. De Nunzio, G., Gomes, G., Canudas-de-Wit, C., Horowitz, R., Moulin,
P.: Speed advisory and signal offsets control for arterial bandwidth max-
imization and energy consumption reduction. IEEE Trans. Control Syst.
Technol. 25(3), 875–887 (2016).
76. Xue, X., Zheng, L., Ye, J.: A stochastic simulation-based optimiza-
tion method for calibrating VISSIM simulator under uncertainties. In:
COTA International Conference of Transportation Professionals 2019,
pp. 3008–3019. American Society of Civil Engineers, Reston (2019).
How to cite this article: Zheng, L., Feng, M., Yang,
X., Xue, X.: Stochastic simulation-based optimization
method for arterial traffic signal coordination with
equity and efficiency consideration. IET Intell. Transp.
Syst. 1–12 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1049/itr2.12264
ZHENG ET AL. 13

APPENDIX A

TABLE A1 Detailed signal parameters of signal control plans

Plancycle(s) SI1 SI2 SI3 SI4

RSP Phase

Timing 35 61 25 50 39 22 23 64 24 24 55 32
Offset 0 0 0 0
Cycle 130 120 120 120
SP1 117 Phase

Timing 16 34 58 60 34 14 28 54 26 45 48 15
Offset 0 4 8 1
SP2 168 Phase

Timing 90 48 21 71 44 44 62 65 32 75 62 22
Offset 0 130 53 62
SP3 103 Phase

Timing 65 16 13 49 18 27 17 41 36 39 40 15
Offset 0 100 70 85
SP4 81 Phase

Timing 12 12 48 32 23 17 23 21 28 32 29 11
Offset 0 37 31 63
SP5 115 Phase

Timing 14 19 73 17 13 76 19 24 63 43 31 32
Offset 0 63 85 91

Note: SI1 to SI4 represent the four signalized intersections from southwest to northeast in Figure 2.