Dr. Carlos Gershenson: Measuring the Complexity of Self-organizing Traffic Lights

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We have developed in recent years self-organizing mechanisms for traffic light regulation (Gershenson, 2005; Cools et al., 2007; Gershenson and Rosenblueth, 2012b), which considerably outperform traditional control schemes.
We applied recently proposed measures of emergence E, self-organization S, and complexity C based on information theory (Gershenson and Fernández, 2012; Fernández et al., 2013) to the simulation and mechanisms described in Gershenson and Rosenblueth (2012a), using the city traffic model proposed in Rosenblueth and Gershenson (2011). In particular, we focussed on the information properties of traffic light switch intervals, car intervals at intersections, and car intervals at streets.

References
Cools, S. B., Gershenson, C., and D’Hooghe, B. (2007). Self-organizing traffic lights: A realistic simulation. In Self-Organization: Applied Multi-Agent Systems, M. Prokopenko, (Ed.). Springer, Chapter 3, pp. 41–49. URL http://arxiv.org/abs/nlin.AO/0610040.
Fernández, N., Maldonado, C., and Gershenson, C. (2013). Information measures of complexity, emergence, self-organization, homeostasis, and autopoiesis. In Guided Self- Organization: Inception, M. Prokopenko, (Ed.). Springer. In Press. URL http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.1842.
Gershenson, C. (2005). Self-organizing traffic lights. Complex Systems 16 (1): 29–53. URL http://www.complex-systems.com/pdf/16-1-2.pdf.
Gershenson, C. and Fernández, N. (2012). Complexity and information: Measuring emergence, self-organization, and homeostasis at multiple scales. Complexity 18 (2): 29– 44. URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cplx.21424.
Gershenson, C. and Rosenblueth, D. A. (2012a). Adaptive self-organization vs. static optimization: A qualitative comparison in traffic light coordination. Kybernetes 41 (3): 386–403. URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/03684921211229479.
Gershenson, C. and Rosenblueth, D. A. (2012b). Self-organizing traffic lights at multiple-street intersections. Complexity 17 (4): 23–39. URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cplx.20395.
Rosenblueth, D. A. and Gershenson, C. (2011). A model of city traffic based on elementary cellular automata. Complex Systems 19 (4): 305–322. URL http://www.complex-systems.com/pdf/19-4-1.pdf.

Date: 
Tuesday, September 3, 2013 - 12:00 to 13:30
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