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In recent years, autonomic and organic computing have become areas of active research in the informatics community. Both initiatives aim at handling the growing complexity in technical systems by focusing on adaptation and self-optimisation capabilities. A promising application for organic concepts is the control of road traffic signals in urban areas. This article presents an organic approach to traffic light control in urban areas that exhibits adaptation and learning capabilities, allowing traffic lights to autonomously react on changing traffic conditions. A coordination mechanism for neighbouring traffic lights is presented that relies solely on locally available traffic data and communication among neighbouring intersections, resulting in a distributed and self-organising traffic system for urban areas. The organic system's efficiency is demonstrated in a simulation-based evaluation.

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This article briefly reviews systems, which show self-organizational behavior and defines emergence as their central property. Then it tries to contrast emergent behavior, which is a bottom-up process, with the classical top-down design process. In the last section the paper discusses the Observer/Controller concept as a possible solution to this apparent contradiction.Zusammenfassung Der Artikel zeigt anhand einiger natürlicher und technischer Systeme Selbstorganisationseffekte auf und definiert Emergenz als ihre zentrale Eigenschaft. Er diskutiert den Gegensatz zwischen emergentem Verhalten als Bottom-up-Prozess zum klassischen Top-down-Entwurfsprozess und schlägt das Observer/Controller-Konzept als mögliche Lösung für diesen offensichtlichen Widerspruch vor.