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International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Book | Chapter

200736

Self-organizing urban transportation systems

Carlos Gershenson

pp. 269-279

Abstract

Urban transportation is a complex phenomenon. Many agents are constantly interacting in parallel, so it is difficult to predict the future state of a transportation system. Because of this, optimization techniques tend to give obsolete solutions, as the problem changes before it can be optimized. An alternative lies in seeking adaptive solutions. This adaptation can be achieved with self-organization. In a self-organizing transportation system, the elements of the system follow local rules to achieve a global solution. In this way, when the problem changes the system can adapt by itself to the new configuration.In this chapter, I review recent, current, and future work on self-organizing transportation systems. Self-organizing traffic lights have proven to improve traffic flow considerably compared to traditional methods. In public transportation systems, simple rules have been explored to prevent the "equal headway instability" phenomenon. The methods we have used can be also applied to other urban transportation systems and their generality is discussed.

Publication details

Published in:

Portugali Juval, Meyer Han, Stolk Egbert, Tan Ekim (2012) Complexity theories of cities have come of age: an overview with implications to urban planning and design. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 269-279

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-24544-2_15

Full citation:

Gershenson Carlos (2012) „Self-organizing urban transportation systems“, In: J. Portugali, H. Meyer, E. Stolk & E. Tan (eds.), Complexity theories of cities have come of age, Dordrecht, Springer, 269–279.