  Cooperative vehicular technology in recent times has aided in realizing some
state-of-art technologies like autonomous driving. Effective and efficient
prioritization of emergency vehicles (EVs) using cooperative vehicular
technology can undoubtedly aid in saving property and lives. Contemporary EV
prioritization, called preemption, is highly dependent on existing traffic
infrastructure. Accessing crucial decision parameters for preemption like
speed, position and acceleration data in real-time is almost impossible in
current systems. The connected vehicle can provide such data in real-time,
which makes EV preemption more responsive and effective. Also, autonomous
vehicles can help in optimizing the timing in traffic phases and minimize
human-related loss like higher headway times and inconsistent inter-vehicle
spacing when following each other. In this paper, we introduce
self-coordinating a decentralized traffic control system termed as Virtual
Traffic Light plus for Emergency Vehicle (VTL+EV) to prioritize EVs in an
intersection. The proposed system can expedite EVs movement through
intersections and impose minimal waiting time for ordinary vehicles. The VTL+EV
algorithm also can improve overall throughput making an intersection more
efficient.
