A Heuristic Algorithm for Traffic Light Synchronization Based on the MAXBAND Model

Abstract

A widely used approach to solve the synchronization of traffic lights on transport networks is the maximization of the time during which cars start at one end of a street and can go to the other without stopping for a red light (bandwidth maximization). The mixed integer linear model found in the literature, named MAXBAND, can be solved by optimization solvers only for small instances. In this paper we review in detail all the constraints of the original linear model, including those that describe all the cyclic routes in the graph, and we generalize some bounds for integer variables which so far had been presented only for problems that do not consider cycles. Finally, we propose a solution algorithm that uses Tabu Search and Variable Neighbourhood Search and we carry out a computational study to show that it performs very well for large instances.