Emergency vehicle signal preemption application simulated on a network model of Toronto.
Toronto, Canada
A Connected Vehicle Based Traffic Signal Control Strategy for Emergency Vehicle Preemption
Summary Information
Traffic signal preemption for emergency vehicles is a connected vehicle (CV) application enabling the rapid movement of emergency vehicles on arterials. This study describes a signal control strategy that reduces emergency vehicle response time (EVRT).
Methodology
EVRT is expected to be reduced utilizing vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication, IEEE 802.11 beaconing, and predicted queue length to adaptively adjust signals to provide an early green at the right time so the queue at the downstream intersections can be served in time for the arrival of the emergency vehicle. The strategy is tested in a microscopic traffic simulation using the City of Toronto network and 150,000 vehicles.
Results
The simulation found significant EVRT savings. In a high-density area the method reduced EVRT by 50.94 percent, in a medium-density area the method reduced EVRT by 44.41 percent, and in the low-density area the EVRT reduction was 43.17 percent.