Design And Construction Of An Intelligent Traffic Light With Priority To Emergency Vehicles

ABSTRACT

Traffic congestion problem is a phenomena which contributed huge impact to the transportation system in country. This causes many problems especially when there are emergency cases at traffic light intersections which are always busy with many vehicles. A traffic light controller system is designed in order to solve these problems. This system was designed to be operated when it received signal from emergency vehicles based on radio frequency (RF) transmission and used the Programmable Integrated Circuit (PIC) 16F877A microcontroller to change the sequence back to the normal sequence before the emergency mode was triggered. This system will reduce accidents which often happen at the traffic light intersections because of other vehicle had to huddle for given a special route to emergency vehicle. As the result, this project successful analyzing and implementing the wireless communication; the radio frequency (RF) transmission in the traffic light control system for emergency vehicles. The prototype of this project is using the frequency of 434 MHz and function with the sequence mode of traffic light when emergency vehicles passing by an intersection and changing the sequence back to the normal sequence before the emergency mode was triggered. In future, this prototype system can be improved by controlling the real traffic situation, in fact improving present traffic light system technology.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER PAGE

TITLE PAGE

APPROVAL PAGE

DEDICATION

ACKNOWELDGEMENT

ABSTRACT

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1      BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT

• PROBLEM STATEMENT
• AIM OF THE PROJECT
• OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT
• SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT
• APPLICATION OF THE PROJECT
• SCOPE OF THE PROJECT
• ADVANTAGES OF THE PROJECT
• LIMITATION OF THE PROJECT
• METHODOLOGY
• PROJECT ORGANISATION

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

• HISTORITICAL BACKGROUND OF TRAFFIC LIGHT
• REVIEW OF THE RELATED STUDIES

CHAPTER THREE

SYSTEM DESIGN METHODOLOGY

• COMPONENT CONSIDERATION
• CHOOSING COMPONENT
• CONFIGURATION DESIGN
• COMPLETE DESIGN
• FINALIZE DESIGN
• PROJECT BLOCK DIAGRAM
• THE POWER SUPPL

CHAPTER FOUR

• THE IMPLEMETATION OF THE WORK
• PROBLEM ENCOUNTERED
• CONSTRUCTION AND TESTING
• RESULTS / FINDING ANDDISCUSSION

CHAPTER FIVE

• CONCLUSION
• RECOMMENDATION
• REFERENCES

CHAPTER ONE

1.0                                                        INTRODUCTION

Many countries in the world are facing the problem at traffic light intersection that causes accident between emergency vehicle and other public vehicle. The traffic control system in Nigeria specifically has not been equipped with appropriate method when emergency case occurs. This will cause the emergency vehicles such as ambulances difficult to reach the destination on time because of the traffic congestion. Moreover, the situation is getting worse when emergency vehicles have to wait for other vehicles to give way at intersections with traffic lights. This causes a delay of time and may affect the emergency case. Besides, the collisions with other vehicles from other direction might occur at intersections when emergency vehicles had to override the red traffic lights. All these difficulties faced by emergency vehicles can be avoided using this traffic light control system based on radio frequency.

1.1                                         BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT

Traffic lights, developed since 1912, are signaling devices that are conceived to control the traffic flows at road intersections, pedestrian crossings, rail trains, and other locations. Traffic lights consist of three universal colored lights: the green light allows traffic to proceed in the indicated direction, the yellow light warns vehicles to prepare for short stop, and the red signal prohibits any traffic from proceeding [1].

Nowadays, many countries suffer from the traffic congestion problems that affect the transportation system in cities and cause serious dilemma. In spite of replacing traffic officers and flagmen by automatic traffic systems, the optimization of the heavy traffic jam is still a major issue to be faced, especially with multiple junction nodes [2]. The rapid increase of the number of automobiles and the constantly rising number of road users are not accompanied with promoted infrastructures with sufficient resources. Partial solutions were offered by constructing new roads, implementing flyovers and bypass roads, creating rings, and performing roads rehabilitation.

However, the traffic problem is very complicated due to the involvement of diverse parameters. First, the traffic flow depends on the time of the day where the traffic peak hours are generally in the morning and in the afternoon; on the days of the week where weekends reveal minimum load while

Mondays and Fridays generally show dense traffic oriented from cities to their outskirts and in reverse direction respectively; and time of the year as holidays and summer.

Secondly, the current traffic light system is implemented with hard coded delays where the lights transition time slots are fixed regularly and do not depend on real time traffic flow. The third point is concerned with the state of one light at an intersection that influences the flow of traffic at adjacent intersections. Also, the conventional traffic system does not consider the case of accidents, road works, and breakdown cars that worsen traffic congestion. In addition, a crucial issue is related to the smooth motion through intersections of emergency vehicles of higher priorities such as ambulances, rescue vehicles, fire brigade, police, and VIP persons that could get stuck in the crowd. Finally, the pedestrians that cross the lanes also alter the traffic system.

The conventional traffic system needs to be upgraded to solve the severe traffic congestion, alleviate transportation troubles, reduce traffic volume and waiting time, minimize overall travel time, optimize cars safety and efficiency, and expand the benefits in health, economic, and environmental sectors. This paper proposes a simple, low-cost, and real time smart traffic light control system that aims to overcome many defects and improve the traffic management.

1.2                                                  PROBLEM STATEMENT

Whenever there is emergency of the highway such as accident, emergency cars tend to break the rule of traffic light in such area or line, and this leads to accident. This system was designed to be operated when it received signal from emergency vehicles based on radio frequency (RF) transmission and used the Programmable Integrated Circuit (PIC) 16F877A microcontroller to change the sequence back to the normal sequence before the emergency mode was triggered. This system will reduce accidents which often happen at the traffic light intersections because of other vehicle had to huddle for given a special route to emergency vehicle.

1.3                                           AIM OF THE PROJECT

The project is therefore aimed at building a prototype four-way traffic light control circuit with emergency consideration system.

1.4                                             OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT

The main objective of the study includes:

1. To reduce accident caused by emergency vehicles on the highway.
2. To investigate the practicality of the theoretical knowledge about these components to be used.
3. To experiment on the compatibility of the working relation between components to be used.
4. To investigate the extent to which the design and construction of the control unit can be useful to mankind.
5. To investigate the immediate usefulness of the control system as complimentary to traffic wardens.

1.5                                           PURPOSE OF THE PROJECT

At many of our busiest street and highway intersections, there are traffic lights – green for go, yellow or orange for caution as the lights change, red for stop. Primarily, the purpose is simply to facilitate the safe movement of cars, avoiding collisions.

1.6                                      SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT

The project design work signifies a lot in modern industrial electronics. This design that replaced the manually used agent which is the traffic warden positioned at different traffic junctions.

In most developed towns in Nigeria, this system is employed at every x-junction, so that traffic jam or hold up will be highly controlled and also accidents at this junction are highly minimized.

1.7                                                 SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

Traffic light control systems are widely used to monitor and control the flow of automobiles through the junction of many roads. They aim to realize smooth motion of cars in the transportation routes. However, the synchronization of multiple traffic light systems at adjacent intersections is a complicated problem given the various parameters involved. Conventional systems do not handle variable flows approaching the junctions. In addition, the mutual interference between adjacent traffic light systems, the disparity of cars flow with time, the accidents, the passage of emergency vehicles, and the pedestrian crossing are not implemented in the existing traffic system. This leads to traffic jam and congestion.

1.8                                   ADVATAGES OF THE PROJECT

1. Traffic control signals provide for an orderly movement of traffic.
2. They help in reducing the frequency of an accident of some special nature i.e. of right angles accidents.

• They intercept heavy traffic to allow other traffic to cross the road intersection safety.

1. They provide authority to the drivers to move with confidence.
2. They control the speed of vehicles on main as well as on secondary roads.
3. They direct traffic on different routes without excessive congestion.

• The provide economy over manual control at the intersection.

1.9                                           LIMITATION OF THE PROJECT

I.                   Cost of Traffic Signals: One of the important of traffic signals is the cost, especially when a less expensive stop sign will do. The cost of installing and maintaining a traffic signal varies, depending on the state.

II.                 This device is only to be used in four-Lane traffic intersection

1.11                                                   METHODOLOGY

Priority was given to the nature of the junction and how far away they are at different seasons of the year. A lot of design research was carried out on digital logic design and choice of digital families. Data books were consulted to make the most suitable choice of components at the most reasonable cost.

After the design, a market survey was conducted and some components used in the design were not obtainable in the market. Hence, alternative components had to be used and the circuit redesigned. The subsequent stage involves physically realizing the design work, constructing and packaging the entire circuitry on the frame. Finally, he work was given a fine finish and tested.

1.12                                      PROJECT WORK ORGANISATION

The various stages involved in the development of this project have been properly put into five chapters to enhance comprehensive and concise reading. In this project thesis, the project is organized sequentially as follows:

Chapter one of this work is on the introduction to this study. In this chapter, the background, significance, scope, objective, aim, purpose, advantages, limitation and problem, of this work was discussed.

Chapter two is on literature review of the study. In this chapter, all the literature pertaining to this work was reviewed.

Chapter three is on design methodology. In this chapter all the method involved during the design and construction were discussed.

Chapter four is on testing analysis. All testing that result accurate functionality was analyzed.

Chapter five is on conclusion, recommendation and references.