Ph.D. Thesis Defense Announcement

Emergency Vehicle Preemption Strategies using Machine Learning to Optimize Traffic Operations

By

Somdut Roy

Advisor(s):

Dr. Angshuman Guin (CEE) & Dr. Michael Hunter (CEE)

Committee Members:

Dr. Michael Rodgers (CEE), Dr. Randall Guensler (CEE), Dr. Richard Vuduc (CSE), Dr. Abhilasha Saroj (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

Date & Time: April 21, 2023 at 11:30 am

Location: (Hybrid) SEB 122 and Zoom: https://gatech.zoom.us/j/991863429

Emergency-Response-Vehicles (ERVs) operate with the purpose of saving lives and mitigating
property damage. Emergency-response Vehicle Preemption (EVP) is implemented to provide the
right-of-way to ERVs by displaying the green indications along the ERV route. Two EVP
strategies were developed as part of this effort. First, a strategy was developed, defined as
“Dynamic-Preemption” (DP), that utilizes Connected-Vehicle (CV) technology to detect, in real
time, the need for preemption prior to the ERV reaching the vicinity of an intersection. The DP
strategy is based on several generalized traffic demand and simplified traffic flow assumptions.
Second, a machine learning approach was utilized to develop an EVP call strategy that sought
to (1) preemptively clear queues at intersections prior to ERV arrival, (2) create a "delay-free"
path for the ERV, and (3) minimize excess delay to the conflicting traffic in the event of an EVP
call. The ML approach utilizes currently available vehicle detection data streams and is trained
based on simulated EVP scenarios. Existing field strategies and the developed strategies were
tested under varying scenarios, on a simulated signalized corridor testbed. It was observed that
the proposed methodologies showed tangible improvement over the existing baseline
algorithms for EVP, both in terms of ERV travel time and delay to the conflicting movements. In
summary, this research is expected to lay the foundation for use of novel computational
approaches in solving the EVP problem in traffic ecosystems with limited CV penetration, with
the aid of microsimulation.
Keywords: Traffic Signals, Emergency Response Vehicle, Emergency Vehicle Preemption,
Emergency response Vehicle Preemption, preemption, dynamic preemption, Connected Vehicle
technology