Interchange: Bidding for Green Lights

Abstract

In urban environments great effort is directed toward alleviating traffic including the design and implementation of complex software and hardware infrastructure. We introduce the idea of an auction-based mechanism for resolving vehicle intersections using a multi-way group auction mechanism. We propose a supporting infrastructure that has promise for increasing performance and responsiveness to dynamic traffic conditions. We propose new metrics to evaluate intersections that attempt to capture a more human aspect of vehicular transportation. We demonstrate that Interchange intersections perform well in single and multi-grid configurations, are self-adapting and can perform better under a variety of traffic loads.