Communications - Scientific letters of the University of Zilina X:X | DOI: 10.26552/com.C.2026.040

Adaptive Traffic Signal Control for Enhanced Safety and Efficiency at Road Intersections near Railway

Aleš Janota ORCID...^{1, *}, Dávid Macko ORCID...¹, Vojtech Šimák ORCID...¹, Aldona Kuśmińska-Fijałkowska ORCID...², Zbigniew Łukasik ORCID...²

¹ University of Zilina, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Department of Control and Information Systems, Zilina, Slovak Republic

² Casimir Pulaski Radom University, Faculty of Transport, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Radom, Poland

In this study is proposed and evaluated an adaptive traffic signal control system designed to synchronize the road and railway signaling, minimize collision risks, and improve traffic flow. Results show that adaptive control reduced average queue length for over 46%, cut vehicle delay for 34%, lowered stop frequency for 74%, and decreased CO₂ emissions for nearly 46% compared to static control. Further analysis examined the effect of varying the distance between intersections and railway crossings, revealing significant safety and efficiency gains when the separation exceeded 80 m. The findings demonstrate that intelligent, sensor driven traffic management can substantially enhance both safety and throughput in these complex transport nodes, while delivering environmental benefits.

Keywords: Intelligent transportation systems, rail, road, traffic, simulation

Grants and funding:

This work was supported by TWIN4ECO–Digital Twin for Ecologically Sustainable Cities through the UNIZA Grant 21019. The authors express their gratitude to Michal Konicek for his advice and assistance in simulations.

Conflicts of interest:

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Received: April 30, 2026; Accepted: June 11, 2026; Prepublished online: July 3, 2026