Distributed Mutual Exclusion Algorithms for Intersection Traffic Problems

Abstract

Conurbations around the globe are encountering the challenges of traffic congestion. Miscellaneous smart systems have been developed to help control and improve traffic flow in a cost-effective and measurable way. Yet, the existing systems solve the traffic congestion problem with cost-intensive traffic lights and mostly handle emergency cases poorly. In this article, to minimize the traffic congestion problems for any kind of vehicles without using traffic lights, we propose three deadlock-free algorithms namely: (i) Mutual exclusion algorithm based on single instruction (MEASIR), (ii) Mutual exclusion algorithm based on priority (MEAPRI), and (iii) Mutual exclusion algorithm based on multi-agent systems (MEAMAS). Communication inside a group is accomplished via a queue structure, while an external element (e.g., a router) is used for internal communications. Besides the depiction of experimental and simulation results, a complete statistical analysis has been performed to compare the performance of MEASIR, MEAPRI, and MEAMAS with their alternatives. Our proposed deadlock-free algorithms are not only efficient but also functional with a computational cost of O(n) to enter the critical section, where n represents the number of all vehicles in a particular intersection.