Abstract: As the traditional traffic signal timing models ignore traffic environment benefit, this paper presents an emission-saving signal timing model for urban intersection control. Firstly, the urban road pollutant emissions model and the criteria pollutant emissions model are established with the consideration of different statuses of vehicles on the road. Then, by analyzing the correlations among traffic signal evaluation indexes, the performance indicators are determined based on relative evaluation indexes to construct a new emission-saving timing model for traffic signal control. To solve the new model, an improved golden ratio-based particle swarm optimization (GRPSO) algorithm is applied. Finally, the traffic signal timing optimization case of an actual isolated intersection is computed by three kinds of algorithms, and simulated via VISSIM. The simulated results demonstrate that the improved GRPSO is effective, and the signal strategy by proposed method outperforms other algorithms for emission-saving traffic signal control.