A macroscopic traffic model for real-time optimization of signalized urban areas

Signalized urban areas are considered in order to improve the performances of traffic systems by means of real-time actions having the purpose of varying the length of traffic lights phases with respect to predefined durations. In this connection, a macroscopic traffic model and an optimization problem are presented in this paper. The proposed model allows the representation of all possible traffic conditions (congested as well as non-congested). The optimization problem is stated with the objective of minimizing the number of vehicles in the overall system, over the whole optimization horizon, by suitably choosing the duration of the phases in each semaphoric cycle.