In a landmark technological advancement using (AI), researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) have developed a possible solution to traffic snarls on Indian roads through the use of a probe-based approach for real-time re-timing of traffic signals. This is probably the first time a probe-based, demand-responsive signal control has been developed for Indian conditions.
The researchers conducted a study in which travel-time data from four sample-probe vehicles were used to calculate Green and Red timings for each signal cycle. A signal cycle is the time between one green signal to the next green signal or one red signal to the next red signal for a selected movement.
The traffic composition in India is very different from that in the Western countries. In India, the traffic is usually referred to as belonging to the category of mixed traffic conditions, with a variety of vehicle classes juxtaposed with lane-free movement.