Strategic Control of Intersections for Efficient Traffic Routing without Tolls

Urban traffic congestion challenges sustainable transportation, causing economic losses (e.g., wasted fuel) and environmental damage. Two main factors contribute to this congestion: self-interested driver routing decisions, often misaligned with optimal traffic flow (as quantified by the Price of Anarchy), and intersections acting as bottlenecks with their limited resources. Prior research has addressed these issues separately, although an intersection's (in)efficiency can also influence driver routing behavior. We propose strategic control of intersections based on priority-based scheduling as a non-monetary solution incentivizing socially optimal routing and ultimately reducing congestion. We quantify the performance in traffic simulations and evaluate its effectiveness in the well-studied Pigou's example. Copyright (c) 2024 The Authors.