An Agent-Based Simulation to Explore Communication in a System to Control Urban Traffic with Smart Traffic Lights

Population growth increases the number of cars and makes the transport infrastructure increasingly saturated. The control of traffic lights by intelligent software is a promising way to solve the problem caused by this situation. This article addresses this problem that occurs in urban traffic. We propose an agent-based simulation of an urban traffic control system. The solution is offered as intelligent traffic lights as agents to alleviate traffic congestion at a given location. Each agent controls a crossing and maintains communication with agents from other corners. Thus, they can have greater control of a larger area and identify patterns that can help them to solve congestion problems. The results of our simulated experiments point to the improvement of the urban traffic when using the proposed Multi-agent System, in comparison with an approach that uses crossing agents without communication and others that implements static traffic lights.