{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,20]],"date-time":"2026-10-20T15:01:47Z","timestamp":1792508507732,"version":"4.5.0"},"reference-count":15,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,21]],"date-time":"2020-02-21T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1582243200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Information"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Traffic lights have been used for decades to control and manage traffic flows crossing road intersections to increase traffic efficiency and road safety. However, relying on fixed time cycles may not be ideal in dealing with the increasing congestion level in cities. Therefore, we propose a new Adaptive Traffic Light Control System (ATLCS) to assist traffic management authorities in efficiently dealing with traffic congestion in cities. The main idea of our ATLCS consists in synchronizing a number of traffic lights controlling consecutive junctions by creating a delay between the times at which each of them switches to green in a given direction. Such a delay is dynamically updated based on the number of vehicles waiting at each junction, thereby allowing vehicles leaving the city centre to travel a long distance without stopping (i.e., minimizing the number of occurrences of the \u2018stop and go\u2019 phenomenon), which in turn reduces their travel time as well. The performance evaluation of our ATLCS has shown that the average travel time of vehicles traveling in the synchronized direction has been significantly reduced (by up to 39%) compared to non-synchronized fixed time Traffic Light Control Systems. Moreover, the overall achieved improvement across the simulated road network was 17%.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/info11020119","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,21]],"date-time":"2020-02-21T10:49:16Z","timestamp":1582282156000},"page":"119","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":67,"title":["An Efficient Adaptive Traffic Light Control System for Urban Road Traffic Congestion Reduction in Smart Cities"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"11","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7281-1046","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Dex R.","family":"ALEKO","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computing and Mathematics, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester M15 6BH, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1286-7037","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Soufiene","family":"Djahel","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computing and Mathematics, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester M15 6BH, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,21]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"125","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2014.2339817","article-title":"A Communications-Oriented Perspective on Traffic Management Systems for Smart Cities: Challenges and Innovative Approaches","volume":"17","author":"Djahel","year":"2014","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutor."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"163","DOI":"10.3141\/2058-20","article-title":"Real-world carbon dioxide impacts of traffic congestion","volume":"2058","author":"Barth","year":"2008","journal-title":"Transp. Res. Rec."},{"key":"ref_3","unstructured":"INRIX (2020, February 21). Traffic Congestion Cost UK Motorists More Than \u00a330 Billion in 2016. Available online: https:\/\/inrix.com\/press-releases\/traffic-congestion-cost-uk-motorists-more-than-30-billion-in-2016\/."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Aleko, D.R., and Djahel, S. (2019, January 14\u201317). An IoT Enabled Traffic Light Controllers Synchronization Method for Road Traffic Congestion Mitigation. Proceedings of the 2019 IEEE International Smart Cities Conference (IEEE ISC2), Casablanca, Morocco.","DOI":"10.1109\/ISC246665.2019.9071667"},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Li, J., Zhang, Y., and Chen, Y. (2016, January 1\u20133). A Self-Adaptive Traffic Light Control System Based on Speed of Vehicles. Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability and Security Companion (QRS-C), Vienna, Austria.","DOI":"10.1109\/QRS-C.2016.58"},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Djahel, S., Smith, N., Wang, S., and Murphy, J. (2015, January 25\u201328). Reducing emergency services response time in smart cities: An advanced adaptive and fuzzy approach. Proceedings of the 2015 IEEE First International Smart Cities Conference (ISC2), Guadalajara, Mexico.","DOI":"10.1109\/ISC2.2015.7366151"},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Faye, S., Chaudet, C., and Demeure, I. (2012, January 16\u201319). A distributed algorithm for adaptive traffic lights control. Proceedings of the 2012 15th International IEEE Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Anchorage, AK, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/ITSC.2012.6338671"},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Faye, F., Chaudet, C., and Demeure, I. (2012). A distributed algorithm for multiple intersections adaptive traffic lights control using a wireless sensor networks. First Workshop on Urban Networking (UrbaNe \u201912), ACM.","DOI":"10.1145\/2413236.2413240"},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"667","DOI":"10.1111\/itor.12039","article-title":"A linear programming approach for adaptive synchronization of traffic signals","volume":"20","author":"Coll","year":"2013","journal-title":"Int. Trans. Oper. Res."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"274","DOI":"10.1016\/j.engappai.2011.04.011","article-title":"Swarm intelligence for traffic light scheduling: Application to real urban areas","volume":"25","author":"Alba","year":"2012","journal-title":"Appl. Artif. Intell."},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Astarita, V., Festa, D.C., and Giofr\u00e8, V.P. (2018, January 12\u201315). Cooperative-Competitive Paradigm in Traffic Signal Synchronization Based on Floating Car Data. Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE International Conference on Environment and Electrical Engineering and 2018 IEEE Industrial and Commercial Power Systems Europe (EEEIC\/I&CPS Europe), Palermo, Italy.","DOI":"10.1109\/EEEIC.2018.8493496"},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"817","DOI":"10.1016\/j.future.2017.02.017","article-title":"Secure intelligent traffic light control using fog computing","volume":"78","author":"Liu","year":"2018","journal-title":"Future Gener. Comput. Syst."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Nellore, K., and Hancke, G.P. (2016). A Survey on Urban Traffic Management System Using Wireless Sensor Networks. Sensors, 16.","DOI":"10.3390\/s16020157"},{"key":"ref_14","unstructured":"Behrisch, M., Bieker, L., Erdmann, J., and Krajzewicz, D. (2011). SUMO\u2014Simulation of Urban MObility: An Overview. Proceedings of SIMUL 2011, The Third International Conference on Advances in System Simulation, ThinkMind."},{"key":"ref_15","unstructured":"Schrank, D., Eisele, B., and Lomax, T. (2012). TTI\u2019s 2012 Urban Mobility Report, Texas A&M Transportation Institute, The Texas A&M University System."}],"container-title":["Information"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2078-2489\/11\/2\/119\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T08:59:47Z","timestamp":1760173187000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2078-2489\/11\/2\/119"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,21]]},"references-count":15,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,2]]}},"alternative-id":["info11020119"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/info11020119","relation":{},"ISSN":["2078-2489"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2078-2489","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,21]]}}}