A distributed approach to network-wide traffic control management

This paper presents a distributed architecture for area-wide incident response and traffic control management, composed of two interacting, real-time decision-support systems that are able to perform cooperative reasoning and to resolve conflicts. The two units exchange partial and potentially incomplete results during the execution of their problem-solving tasks and exploit inter-agent constraints to resolve inconsistencies that are due to the limitations of their information, in order to integrate local solutions into global, network-wide control plans. Reflecting the complexity of the interaction between the various agencies engaged in the management and control of urban networks, this approach takes into account the desire of each individual agency to preserve its autonomy and maintain the control of the facilities under its jurisdiction, but at the same time tries to exploit their willingness to cooperate and unify their problem-solving capabilities towards a conflict-free, integrated response to operational problems.