Towards reservation-based intersection coordination: an economic approach

Understanding and controlling a complex system like traffic is not a trivial task. To this aim, many market-based methods have been applied to the design and the management of such systems, by defining the "rules of the game" and trying to enforce a desired global outcome. We model traffic as a computational economy, where drivers trade with the intelligent infrastructure in a virtual marketplace, buying time and space to cross intersections when commuting through the city. We show how such mechanism influences the drivers' behaviour, producing benefits for both the drivers (i.e. lower average travel times) and the road network (i.e. less congestions).