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To contend traffic congestion on urban networks, existing studies have made great efforts to develop traffic-responsive signal timing algorithms in the last decade. More recently, as an alternative to conventional model-based algorithms, machine learning-based methods have been tested on traffic light timing problems and show promising potentials. However, many researchers and practitioners still questioned the feasibility and applicability of adopting machine learning techniques in the ATSC domain. One of the reasons is that these methods assumed flawless detectors and heavily relied on simulators for training and evaluations. To address such a critical concern, this article customizes a Deep Q-learning Learning (DQL) method to optimize traffic signal timings at urban intersections, where the partial observations from identity-based detectors are inputs, and the green splits are outputs. A simulation-free data-driven prediction model is also developed to train the DQL with reduced computational time. Then the machine learning-based methods are evaluated on a real-world case with Automatic Number-Plate Recognition (ANPR) data. Experiments show the proposed data-driven model can predict the traffic state in limited computational time, and the DQL algorithm is 3.9% better than the field experiment performance from the adaptive control system, SCOOT, and 22% better than the time-of-day plan by SYNCHRO. The results indicate the DQL methods can only yield marginal improvement with restrictive input and output settings in congested traffic flow in comparison to the conventional adaptive method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intelligent traffic light control is one of the modern approaches to solve traffic congestion, where reinforcement learning is a widely used method. Conventionally, reinforcement learning is used to determine whether to change the current phase (or choose a traffic phase) after each small interval. One major drawback of these approaches is that it makes the current traffic light phase duration uncertain before the current phase terminates. Directly determining the duration of the traffic light phase can effectively avoid this shortcoming. An adaptive traffic light timing system is proposed in this paper which can directly control the phase duration. In the proposed system, the Q-learning algorithm is employed and the action space is defined as all possible phase durations. In addition, the reward function is redefined to guide the agent to balance more traffic metrics, and the state is redefined to reduce the state space. Finally, the proposed system is evaluated by equal, unequal, and complex traffic scenarios. Results show that the proposed system has a better performance compared with other methods in controlling traffic lights, even on complex traffic scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevailing variable speed limit (VSL) systems as an effective strategy for traffic control on motorways have the disadvantage that they only work with static VSL zones. Under changing traffic conditions, VSL systems with static VSL zones may perform suboptimally. Therefore, the adaptive design of VSL zones is required in traffic scenarios where congestion characteristics vary widely over space and time. To address this problem, we propose a novel distributed spatial-temporal multi-agent VSL (DWL-ST-VSL) approach capable of dynamically adjusting the length and position of VSL zones to complement the adjustment of speed limits in current VSL control systems. To model DWL-ST-VSL, distributed W-learning (DWL), a reinforcement learning (RL)-based algorithm for collaborative agent-based self-optimization toward multiple policies, is used. Each agent uses RL to learn local policies, thereby maximizing travel speed and eliminating congestion. In addition to local policies, through the concept of remote policies, agents learn how their actions affect their immediate neighbours and which policy or action is preferred in a given situation. To assess the impact of deploying additional agents in the control loop and the different cooperation levels on the control process, DWL-ST-VSL is evaluated in a four-agent configuration (DWL4-ST-VSL). This evaluation is done via SUMO microscopic simulations using collaborative agents controlling four segments upstream of the congestion in traffic scenarios with medium and high traffic loads. DWL also allows for heterogeneity in agents' policies; cooperating agents in DWL4-ST-VSL implement two speed limit sets with different granularity. DWL4-ST-VSL outperforms all baselines (W-learning-based VSL and simple proportional speed control), which use static VSL zones. Finally, our experiments yield insights into the new concept of VSL control. This may trigger further research on using advanced learning-based technology to design a new generation of adaptive traffic control systems to meet the requirements of operating in a nonstationary environment and at the leading edge of emerging connected and autonomous vehicles in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]