A Holistic Framework Towards Vision-based Traffic Signal Control with Microscopic Simulation

1Auburn University
2University of Edinburgh
3Clemson University
4University of California, Los Angeles

Corresponding Author

Abstract

Traffic signal control (TSC) is crucial for reducing traffic congestion that leads to smoother traffic flow, reduced idling time, and mitigated CO2 emissions. In this study, we explore the computer vision approach for TSC that modulates on-road traffic flows through visual observation. Unlike traditional feature-based approaches, vision-based methods depend much less on heuristics and predefined features, bringing promising potentials for end-to-end learning and optimization of traffic signals. Thus, we introduce a holistic traffic simulation framework called TrafficDojo towards vision-based TSC and its benchmarking by integrating the microscopic traffic flow provided in SUMO into the driving simulator MetaDrive. This proposed framework offers a versatile traffic environment for in-depth analysis and comprehensive evaluation of traffic light controllers across diverse traffic conditions and scenarios. We establish and compare baseline algorithms including both traditional and Reinforecment Learning (RL) approaches. This work sheds insights into the design and development of vision-based TSC approaches and open up new research opportunities

MY ALT TEXT
Overview of TrafficDojo. TrafficDojo supports generating rich 3D visual scenarios from SUMO maps, leveraged by a visual rendering engine of MetaDrive. At each time step, TrafficDojo implements a synchronization mechanism to direct the synchronous creation, updating, and removal of vehicles and pedestrians between SUMO and MetaDrive. TrafficDojo thus provides a Gym interactive environment tailored for traffic signal control, equipped with the capability to capture visual data from sensors like RGB cameras and LIDARs positioned at a traffic intersection. Additionally, it directly connects to the common RL training platforms such as Stable-Baseline3 and RLLib where a wide range of RL algorithms can be evaluated.

Video Demos