An Embedded Platform for Intelligent Traffic Control

Safety and comfort of road users is fast becoming a matter of grave concern. The number of accidents on roads has shot up greatly with the increase in vehicle traffic, so has the race to build a safer and much more reliable system for traffic control and management. Traffic management rides on an extremely balanced equation. A change in timing of Traffic lights has adverse effects on traffic. A change applied too early may lead to congestion on other roads and a change too late may wreak havoc, long traffic jams, instance of road rage, accidents etc. The ideal automated traffic signal is yet to be built. This report presents an adaptive traffic control system where the traffic load is continuously measured by sensors connected to a micro controller-based system. The traffic lights of an area are interconnected with a communication network through which traffic load and synchronization information is exchanged. As a result, the duration of each traffic light cycle changes dynamically. This means that the timing of the traffic light changes according to the load, the side with the greatest load is given time wise priority.