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Traffic Lights Optimally Controlled for Public Transportation

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The internationally coordinated re-use of radio frequency bands harbors the risk that today's analog radio-based communication basis for public transport priority at traffic lights cannot be used anymore. Since – irrespective of this – signal programs cannot always guarantee a stop-avoiding prioritization of public transport vehicles, especially in the case of competing requests, driving with minimal energy and emissions required for climate protection reasons requires the predictive transmission of the upcoming signal times to the drivers or to the driverless vehicles in the future. Both problems should be solved by using V2I communication technologies according to the ETSI ITS-G5 and ISO / TS 19091 standards. First projects have demonstrated the basic feasibility, but also revealed a number of new problems. These concern for example the data security, the reliability of the signal prediction, the design workflow and finally the search for practicable migration paths for the introduction of such highly complex systems with countless mobile and stationary components during operation. This represents a major challenge for municipalities and public transport companies and is fraught with many uncertainties. For the step-by-step solution of these diverse problems, LOGIN pursues the development and testing of a modular construction kit, which provides solutions and instruments at all levels involved (planning, design, pilot testing and regular operation). Based on this, traffic light and public transport operators can gradually implement the components best-suited to each and can test them under practical conditions. The starting point and the target area of the research and development work at once are the state capital Hanover and the Hanover region with the public transport companies ÜSTRA and regiobus. Ifak's work focuses on the development of OnBoard units for the ÜSTRA buses as well as the AI-based prediction of the upcoming signal changes.