LOW-COST SMART TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Abstract In Ghana and other parts of Africa, most traffic management systems are implemented by the use of a timer at each phase. This method of traffic management is inefficient because equal length of green light is assigned to each lane at the intersection; resulting in long wait times for vehicles behind a traffic light with the red signal on, especially when other lanes are vacant. This project addresses problems such as the one stated in the previous sentence through designs and implementation of a low-cost smart traffic management system. The project is carried out by the use of electrical components that are affordable, easy to maintain and reliable. An inductive loop is used as the vehicle detection device for each lane. Traffic density acquisition is then done using an algorithm running on a single board computer, Raspberry Pi, to obtain the number of vehicles on each lane. After the acquisition of traffic density, the data is processed to obtain the green light length for a lane. After green light length determination, the traffic density acquired earlier is sent to a database on a server via Wi-Fi to enable another microcontroller to use the data to execute traffic coordination between a lane and its preceding lane. In testing the coordinated control system, the statistical analysis showed that the coordinated traffic control between a lane and its preceding lane can be improved to gain the optimal performance.