GAMEOPT+: Improving Fuel Efficiency in Unregulated Heterogeneous Traffic Intersections via Optimal Multi-agent Cooperative Control

TL;DR

GameOpt+ is a hybrid cooperative control method that significantly improves fuel efficiency, throughput, and travel time in complex, unregulated traffic intersections by combining auction mechanisms with real-time trajectory optimization.

Contribution

It introduces GameOpt+, a novel hybrid approach that operates efficiently in high-density, unregulated traffic, outperforming existing methods in speed, fairness, and fuel savings.

Findings

Increases throughput by at least 25%

Reduces travel time to goal by at least 70%

Decreases fuel consumption by 50%

Abstract

Better fuel efficiency leads to better financial security as well as a cleaner environment. We propose a novel approach for improving fuel efficiency in unstructured and unregulated traffic environments. Existing intelligent transportation solutions for improving fuel efficiency, however, apply only to traffic intersections with sparse traffic or traffic where drivers obey the regulations, or both. We propose GameOpt+, a novel hybrid approach for cooperative intersection control in dynamic, multi-lane, unsignalized intersections. GameOpt+ is a hybrid solution that combines an auction mechanism and an optimization-based trajectory planner. It generates a priority entrance sequence for each agent and computes velocity controls in real-time, taking less than 10 milliseconds even in high-density traffic with over 10,000 vehicles per hour. Compared to fully optimization-based methods, it operates 100 times faster while ensuring fairness, safety, and efficiency. Tested on the SUMO simulator, our algorithm improves throughput by at least 25%, reduces the time to reach the goal by at least 70%, and decreases fuel consumption by 50% compared to auction-based and signaled approaches using traffic lights and stop signs. GameOpt+ is also unaffected by unbalanced traffic inflows, whereas some of the other baselines encountered a decrease in performance in unbalanced traffic inflow environments.