Systems and methods are disclosed for controlling cell selection between a high power base station and a neighboring low power base station in a cellular network. In one embodiment, a primary direction of traffic flow for a user equipment located within a transition zone between a high power base station cell of the high power base station and a low power base station cell of the low power base station is determined to be either an uplink direction or a downlink direction. Cell selection for the user equipment is then controlled based on the primary direction of traffic flow for the user equipment such that selection of the high power base station cell is favored if the primary direction of traffic flow is the downlink direction and selection of the low power base station cell is favored if the primary direction of traffic flow is the uplink direction.