Self-organizing traffic management for emergency vehicles

Abstract

Emergency vehicles have the highest priority to reach its destination as fast as possible in case of an emergency situation. Therefore, they have special rights to use bus lanes and request priority at red traffic lights. But driving an emergency vehicle is a dangerous task. The risk being involved in accidents, being injured or killed is much higher with an emergency vehicle (which requests special rights) than with a private vehicle. Especially violating red traffic lights are often the reason for accidents. In the poster a self-organizing approach for a cooperative application will presented how the travel time of emergency can be improved. Cooperative traffic management strategies can support emergency vehicle drivers by switching the traffic lights on the way of the emergency vehicles depending on the estimated arrival time and the current traffic state on the route of the emergency vehicle.