Controle de Semáforos para Veículos de Emergência

Abstract

The high volume of vehicles in large metropolitan areas creates challenges for first responders, such as firefighters and paramedics, as it delays emergency vehicles due to traffic congestion. A standard way to reduce congestion is traffic light preemption on emergency vehicle (EV) routes. In this context, we propose an innovative traffic-light control system for emergency vehicles using smart city middleware that centralizes information and manages traffic lights along the whole EV route. Our primary contribution is the design and evaluation of an efficient preemption algorithm to reduce EV delays during emergencies. The algorithm utilizes a Timed Petri Net to coordinate concurrent events, thereby avoiding simultaneous actions at traffic lights along the EV’s route. Complementarily, the time required for vehicle queue dissipation is calculated based on the shockwave principle, allowing for an accurate estimation of road clearance. Extensive simulations in both real and synthetic scenarios demonstrate that our solution reduces EV delays and outperforms three competing algorithms.