  Traffic congestion is a daunting problem that is affecting the daily lives of
billions of people across the world. Recently, a promising new traffic control
scheme known as Virtual Traffic Lights (VTL) has been proposed for mitigating
traffic congestion. VTL is an infrastructure free traffic control scheme that
leverages the presence of Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications. Such
infrastructure free scheme has several benefits, such as alleviating traffic
congestion; reducing the large cost of traffic lights and traffic control
systems; reducing carbon emission, etc. This paper reports a DSRC-based
prototype design effort on VTL using Dedicated Short Range Communications
(DSRC) technology. The experiments performed show the feasibility of
implementing VTL with DSRC technology. Preliminary results of the field tests
conducted in Pittsburgh with vehicles using VTL equipment indicate that VTL is
capable of coordinating traffic at intersections and reducing the commute time
of people.
