You are hereby invited to our first "Evolution, Complexity and Cognition (ECCO)" seminar of 2005:
"Self-organizing traffic lights" by Carlos Gershenson (ECCO/CLEA, VUB) The seminar will take place in room 3C204 (building C, 3rd floor) on the VUB campus Oefenplein, this week Friday, Jan. 28, at 17:30 h. Maps of the campus can be found at http://www.vub.ac.be/english/campEt.html Abstract: Steering traffic in cities is a very complex task, since improving efficiency involves the coordination of many actors. Traditional approaches attempt to optimize traffic lights for a particular density and configuration of traffic. The disadvantage of this lies in the fact that traffic configurations change constantly. Traffic seems to be an adaptation problem rather than an optimization problem. We propose a simple and feasible alternative, in which traffic lights self-organize to improve traffic flow. We use a multi-agent simulation to study three self-organizing methods, which are able to outperform traditional rigid and adaptive methods. Using simple rules and no direct communication, traffic lights are able to self-organize and adapt to changing traffic conditions, reducing waiting times, stopped cars, and increasing average speeds. More info and simulation at: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~cgershen/sos/index.html#sotl ------ More info on the "Evolution, Complexity and Cognition (ECCO)" research group: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ECCO/ -- Francis Heylighen "Evolution, Complexity and Cognition" research group Free University of Brussels http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html
