ISSN 2278-3091

Volume 10, No.4, July - August 2021

Sai Varshitha Rodda et al., International Journal of Advanced Trends in Computer Science and Engineering, 10(4), July – August 2021, 2701
– 2703 International Journal of Advanced Trends in Computer Science and Engineering
Available Online at http://www.warse.org/IJATCSE/static/pdf/file/ijatcse081042021.pdf
https://doi.org/10.30534/ijatcse/2021/081042021

Density based Traffic Control with Alert System using

Arduino and NodeMCU
Sai Varshitha Rodda1, Sai Srinidhi Karanam2, KC Sriharipriya3
Undergraduate student, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, India, [email protected]
Undergraduate student, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, India, [email protected]
School of Information Technology, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, India, [email protected]

ABSTRACT 2. PROPOSED SYSTEM

System Overview - The objective of the system is to

The aim of this paper is to design and implement a adjust the traffic light timings as traffic density on a
density-based traffic control system with automatic particular road. If a traffic violation is done at a red light,
intruder identification using IoT. This system enables it then the control unit will receive the message that “Signal
to identify the density of the traffic at the dense traffic is crossed “and at what time.
roads and accordingly adjust the timing of traffic signals
in order to reduce the congestion at the road and also
alerts when the vehicles cross the signal when ‘red’.
Hardware design is implemented by using Arduino and
NodeMCU. It also uses IR sensors that indicate traffic
congestion at intersections (crossroads). The
programming is done using Arduino IDE. The data is
monitored on device and the image is displayed on the
app along with time and date of the violation incident.
This approach to traffic congestion is expected to
significantly improve traffic congestion in order to
predict traffic congestion and find a solution. It can also
provide information about traffic violations and thus,
help monitor and control effectively. Figure 1: Block diagram of proposed system
Keywords - Arduino Uno, Internet of Things(IoT), 2. 1 COMPONENTS USED
ThingSpeak, IR sensor, Arduino.
Arduino - Arduino is an open-source project that created
1. INTRODUCTION microcontroller-based kits for building digital devices
2. and interactive objects that can sense and control
One of the most common problems across the world is physical devices.
getting stuck in a traffic jam. As the population is
increasing day by day, the number of vehicles are
ESP8266 NodeMCU - NodeMCU is an open-source
increasing which causes road traffic congestion. The
daily commuting on the roads is becoming more firmware and development kit that helps to prototype
exhausting every day, leading to the failure of the and build IoT products. It includes firmware that runs on
public transportation system. To keep in pace with the the ESP8266 Wi-Fi SoC from Espressif Systems, and
growing developing activities in major cities, there is a hardware which is based on the ESP-12 module.
need to have a smart traffic control system that manages
the traffic light timings and detects traffic light ThingSpeak - ThingSpeak is an IoT application platform
violators. High volume of the vehicles, the inadequate
providing various services exclusively targeted for
infrastructure and the irrational distribution of the
traffic signalling system are main reasons for this building IoT applications. It offers capabilities like real-
chaotic congestion. Therefore, in order to get rid of time data collection, visualizing the collected data in the
these problems or at least reduce them to a significant form of charts and widgets , ability to create plugins and
level, newer schemes need to be implemented by apps for collaborating with web services, social network
bringing in sensor based automation techniques in this and other APIs.
field of traffic signalling system.

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2.2 ALGORITHM 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The Arduino will receive information about the

traffic density using IR sensors. Under Normal traffic
conditions, the time duration of each traffic light (red,
yellow, green) is two seconds.

Depending on the traffic movement received from the IR

sensors, the data will be managed dynamically to avoid
traffic congestion.
In case of traffic congestion, the IR sensors detect the
presence of the vehicle and send the density information
to Arduino UNO which alters the duration of green traffic
light of the particular lane from two seconds to six
a) Hardware
seconds.
When there is no traffic violation, the density
management is done as per the specified flow, i.e. two Figure 3: Hardware setup
b) ThingSpeak channel
seconds each in case the traffic density decreases to
normal and remains six seconds if heavy traffic still
persists.
In case of traffic violation, i.e. if a vehicle jumps the red
light,the data reaches the ThingSpeak Channel. Further,
the control unit will receive the message that “Signal is
crossed “ and at what time.

The mobile app displays the date and time of violation

along with the message. This can be accessed by the
traffic administrator from any smart device such as
laptop, desktop, smart phones, tablets, etc.

2.3 FLOW CHART

Figure 4: ThingSpeak channel

c) Smartphone notification

Figure 2: Flow chart

Figure 4: Smartphone alert

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in turn consumes a lot of time and fuel due to unnecessary

4. CHALLENGES AND FUTURE SCOPE OF waiting time. We hope this method will be adopted as
ADVANCEMENTS soon as possible so that the limitations we are
experiencing with present methods can be overcome.
Although the prototype model worked very efficiently
with remarkable outputs, the real-time situation is going REFERENCES
to be way more demanding and challenging. Few of the
challenges that should be taken into consideration are [1] Aaron Don M. Africa, Francis Xavier Asuncion,
listed as follows Janos Lance Tiberio, Raymund Miguel Francisco A.
• Low range IR sensors may not be suitable for long Munchua “Sensor-based Traffic Control Network
range traffic signalling systems. We may convert to with Neural Network Based Control System”-
IJATCSE Vol 8 (August 2019).
ultrasound or radar techniques for big scale set-ups.
[2] Mr. Bilal Ghazal, Mr. Khaled ElKhatib“Smart
• Periodic checking of the precision and accuracy is a Traffic Light Control System”- IJERT (April 2016)
must for efficient operation of this model prototype. [3] Mr. Shubham sahu, Mr. Depanjampaul, Mr.
• Next is the influence of drift signals that may differ the Senthilmurgan“Density based traffic control using
reading of sensory receptors and lead to conveying any IR sensors”- IRJET (June 2019).
false information to the microcontroller. [4] Mr. Piyush mahajan, Ms. punamkumari, Mr. HPS
Safety first: It has to be absolutely made sure that no kang“Design and implementation of portable
traffic system”- IJRTER (2017).
compromise is being made on the safety issues, i.e. a
[5] Mr. Tenepallikalyan sai manikantachari, Mr. Sai
secondary stand-by set-up that can switch from tejatutika“Density based traffic control signaling
automated to the manual mode, should be accommodated using ir sensor”- Philpapers (2019).
in the case of circuit or sensor malfunctions so that
vehicular crowd do not go beyond control. As part of
future work and advancements, the traffic check post can
be connected by wireless transmitters by which the
crossings ahead may be predicted of the traffic that is
approaching. This may be achieved by connecting the
sensor network with GPS connectivity and short-wave
radio transmission signals. This will act as a feed forward
system making the signalling system even more smooth
and congestion free. We will also update this system with
modern technologies so that when a vehicle tries to move
even during a red signal it will turn on an alarm in the
form of an alert to warn the driver of the vehicle.

5. CONCLUSION
Arduino UNO and NodeMCU (ESP826612E) were used
to develop a density based traffic controller along with an
integrated camera module for default identification. Upon
detecting heavy congestion, the IR sensors send the
related information to Arduino which manipulates the
‘Green’ time of traffic lights to allow the passage of the
traffic. The defaulter, who skips the red light is also
captured using a NodeMCU and sending a message. We
designate ESP826612E as an access point and use it to
make a web server which displays messages captured
during violation time and date on the app accessed by the
user. Thus, from above results or outputs, we can
conclude that using the method of density-based control
of traffic lights we can save a considerable amount of
time and also we can prevent excessive traffic jams thus
leading to smooth traffic flow. In practice presently in
India we are following time-based traffic signal control
and we are experiencing heavy traffic jams all over which

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