Parallel reinforcement learning for traffic signal control

Developing Adaptive Traffic Signal Control strategies for efficient urban traffic management is a challenging problem, which is not easily solved. Reinforcement Learning (RL) has been shown to be a promising approach when applied to traffic signal control (TSC) problems. When using RL agents for TSC, difficulties may arise with respect to convergence times and performance. This is especially pronounced on complex intersections with many different phases, due to the increased size of the state action space. Parallel Learning is an emerging technique in RL literature, which allows several learning agents to pool their experiences while learning concurrently on the same problem. Here we present an extension to a leading published work on RL for TSC, which leverages the benefits of Parallel Learning to increase exploration and reduce delay times and queue lengths.