Scientists at FAU Driven to Help Transform Commutes
Traffic jams not only make daily commutes exasperating, they also contribute to excessive fuel consumption and air pollution.
More than 70 percent of FAU's 30,000 students take classes at FAU's first and largest campus and the majority of the University's 175+ degree programs are based here. Located just three miles from the Atlantic Ocean and the beautiful beaches of Boca Raton, the campus features everything you expect from a modern university -- suite-style housing for nearly 4,000 students, brand-new athletics and recreational facilities, art galleries, a cafe/movie theater complex and so much more -- all in a vibrant, tropical setting with a student body that is the most diverse of all of 红玫瑰社区's public universities.
Traffic jams not only make daily commutes exasperating, they also contribute to excessive fuel consumption and air pollution. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, outdated traffic signaling accounts for more than 10 percent of all traffic delays. Adaptive traffic control systems or 鈥渟mart鈥 traffic lights allow intersection signals to adjust to real-time traffic conditions like accidents, road construction and even weather. In the U.S., adaptive signal control technologies have been in use for approximately 20 years, but have been deployed on less than 3 percent of existing traffic signals. 红玫瑰社区, California and Michigan are among the states paving the way to make traffic signal improvements a priority.
Researchers in the Laboratory for Adaptive Traffic Operations & Management (LATOM) in the College of Engineering and Computer Science at 红玫瑰社区 have received a $100,000 grant from the City of Miami Beach to test two adaptive traffic signals being considered for one of their busiest corridors in South Beach 鈥 Arthur Godfrey Road (41st Street). Miami is among the 10 U.S. cities with the worst traffic. In addition, FAU鈥檚 LATOM recently received a $300,000 grant from the 红玫瑰社区 Department of Transportation to research use of high-resolution data, from signal controllers and detectors, to monitor performance of traffic signals. 聽聽聽
鈥淭iming for research in adaptive control systems is right and perspectives are exciting,鈥 said Mohammad Ilyas, Ph.D., dean of FAU鈥檚 College of Engineering and Computer Science. 鈥淲ith better sensing technologies such as wireless communication and personal mobile devices, smarter algorithms, and more processing power, we are moving towards an era of much more efficient, safer and eco-friendly traffic signals.鈥
These complex systems require extensive surveillance and communication infrastructure to enable connection either among local controllers or between a central system and the local controllers. FAU鈥檚 LATOM is a one-of-kind simulation lab equipped with software, hardware and institutional capabilities, providing regional, national and international partners with opportunities to develop new and use existing methods and tools to monitor, manage and control transportation infrastructure.
聽鈥淐ongested roads have long been a headache for contemporary cities and we need to look at innovative ways to deal with traffic,鈥 said Aleksandar Stevanovic, Ph.D., PE, director of LATOM and associate professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatics Engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer Science at FAU. 鈥淲hile better management of traffic signals won鈥檛 reduce the number of cars on our streets, we can do a much better job in adjusting signals to work more efficiently.鈥 He adds, 鈥淪mart traffic lights are one way to address urban traffic congestion, and if timed properly and continually, they can both reduce traffic delays and improve public safety.鈥
Conventional signal systems use pre-programmed, daily signal timing schedules. Adaptive traffic control systems on the other hand, adjust the timing of red, yellow and green lights to accommodate changing traffic patterns. Duration of the green lights is usually a result of a complex compromise between the needs of a single intersection and the needs for good connection/progression with other surrounding intersections. Adaptive traffic control systems create such compromising solutions 鈥榦n the fly鈥 by extensively using wires embedded in city streets, or other forms of detectors, to sense changes in traffic demands and its patterns.
As a relatively new technology, adaptive control systems are still somewhat expensive. Therefore, municipalities often seek advice from experts and research labs to pre-test effectiveness of these systems in the lab environment before the systems are deployed in live traffic. 聽聽
鈥淚n our lab, we are able to work with our partners to model or 鈥榮imulate鈥 different traffic patterns throughout a day 鈥 and on weekends and during various other scenarios 鈥 where virtually the same technology that controls traffic in the field is used in simulation to test its effectiveness and reliability,鈥 said Stevanovic.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, on average, smart traffic lights improve travel time by more than 10 percent, and in areas with particularly outdated signal timing, improvements can be 50 percent or more. 聽
For more information on FAU鈥檚 LATOM, visit .
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