International Conference of Soft Computing and Pattern Recognition

Real Time Traffic Accident Detection System using

Wireless Sensor Network
Hossam M. Sherif M.Amer Shedid Samah A. Senbel
Department of Information Systems Department of Computer Science Department of Computer Science
Future Academy Future Academy Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime
Transport
Cairo, Egypt Cairo, Egypt Cairo, Egypt
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Abstract‫ـــــــ‬Automatic vehicle accident detection is a life-saving (measurements) of the phenomenon, i.e. in this approach we
application that is vital in today’s high speed motorways. In case will have heterogeneous topology as the measurements
of motorway accidents, notification to the proper authorities include different types of phenomenon. These sensors
must be done efficiently and expediently. The main objective of
communicate over wireless medium forming a wireless sensor
this paper is to create a Real Time Traffic Accident Detection
network. Finally these sensors disseminate information about
System (RTTADS) using Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) and
Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) Technologies. This paper
the phenomenon to the observer [3].
explains the hardware prototype setup for RTTADS, the
The radio frequency identification (RFID) technology allows
algorithms used, the advantages and the limitations of the entire
system. Also the configuration of the setup and application automatic identification of objects with RFID tags. These
software is elaborated. Sensors installed in a vehicle detect the objects’ data stored in RFID tag can be accessed by RFID
accident’s location, the vehicle’s speed just before the accident readers. Hence objects in real world can link to a digital
and the number of passengers in the vehicle. The sensors then identification through the RFID technology. These
send an alert signal to a monitoring station. The monitoring identifications can be connected to each other in the cyber
station, in turn, tracks the location where the accident has space, forming a connection mapping of the corresponding
occurred and directs casualty alert to the authorities concerned. real objects. Consequently, the RFID technology is a key
technology that enables the internet of things [4]. The rest of
the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 explains the
Keywords: Real Time Traffic Accident Detection System motivation of the proposal; section 3 presents the related
(RTTADS); Sensor; Wireless Sensor Network (WSN); Radio- work; section 4 introduces the proposed algorithm
Frequency Identification components; section 5 explains the Real Time Traffic
Accident Detection System (RTTADS) Schema; section 6
I. INTRODUCTION
explains the intended application; section 7 explains the
Wireless sensor networking is an emerging technology that Hardware Implementation; section 8 explains the software
has a wide range of potential applications including implementation; the conclusion section, and finally the
environment monitoring, smart spaces, medical systems and references.
robotic exploration [1, 2]. Each node in the WSN has one or
II. Motivation
more sensors, embedded processors, and low-power radios;
and is normally battery operated. Typically, these nodes Although different governmental and non-governmental
coordinate to perform a common task [1, 3]. organizations all around the world carry out workshops and
other training programs to make people aware of the effect of
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) Terminology could be
careless driving, yet this whole process has not been very
summarized as follows: Sensors make discrete, local samples
successful till the day we live. In Our Country, deaths due to

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traffic accidents became a major problem adding to those will gather all information needed to prepare the packet that
emergency actions by hospitals or police that are not provided will be sent to the coordinator (sensor’s status, RFID reader
at the place of accident at required time, ignoring the fact that stating the location of the accident, vehicle’s number, and
number of passengers) where the RF module will send. At the
these people’s lives could have been saved. Basically, in the
end the RF module will send the packet.
event of a road accident, the Real Time Traffic Accident
Detection System (RTTADS) proposed can intelligently It is worth mentioning that the algorithm also sends a message
inform the site of accident through a wireless interface, indicating the vehicle’s location on predefined period of time.
reporting it to the proper authorities. Also, informing the type Figure 1 illustrates the steps of the node algorithm.
and the amount of emergence services needed, and
approximately the number of injured people.

III. Related works

Reference [5] is a traffic flow control system that uses

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) to control the traffic flow
sequences. WSN is used as a tool to instrument and control
traffic signals while an intelligent traffic controller is
developed to control the operation of the traffic infrastructure
supported by the WSN. Conventional vehicular sensor
systems for accident detection, such as (ACDS) system and
discussed in [6] Wireless Vehicular Accident Detection and
Reporting System notify emergency responders immediately
by utilizing in-vehicle sensors, such as accelerometers and
airbag deployment monitors to detect car accidents. In
reference [7] the proposed model has aimed for the real time
traffic control using the traffic lights. Wireless sensors are
deployed on the lanes and can detect vehicles’ number, speed
etc, and communicate to the nearest control station to forward
any information. In [8] is a document regarding automatic
vehicle identification and managing traffic using RFID.
Fig. 1 Node algorithm

IV. Proposed Algorithms

B. Router algorithm
In the proposed system, three main components are needed to
This algorithm is concerned with the router board
facilitate the delivery of the accident report. In other words,
available at each street which examines each message within
we need three algorithms which are stated as below: its range. The examination process is done on the last 2 bits of
the received packet. There are three types of message; help
A. Node algorithm message, scan order message and I’m here message.
If the last two bits are (01), then it is “I’m here” message; and
This algorithm is concerned with the embedded board
each router examines its own buffer; if the message has not
in the vehicle, where it checks the status for the airbag,
been registered before, the router registers it, and otherwise,
whether opened or no. If the status is “I’m here”, it indicates
the message is ignored.
that no accident occurred and the embedded board with
If the last two bits are (10), then it is “Help” message, and in
register the vehicle’s speed. If the status is “help”, this means
this case as soon as the router receives the message, it sends it
that an accident has occurred and hence the embedded board
to the coordinator; by that the real time concept is applied.

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If the last two bits are (11) then this is an indicator that the
message is “scan order” message where the coordinator asks
the router to empty all the messages available in its buffer and
sends it to the coordinator. Figure 2 illustrates the steps of the
router algorithm.

Fig. 3 Coordinator algorithm

V. Real Time Traffic Accident Detection System (RTTADS)

Schema

To explain the proposed system clearly, we will discuss a

Fig. 2 Router algorithm
scenario of an accident in details and the function of each
element previously introduced. When an accident occurs, we
use the airbag impact sensor to interrupt the node board then
C. Coordinator algorithm the interruption signal occur, the node board starts to prepare
the packet to be sent encoding the vehicle plate number (three
The coordinator has two tasks; the first one is to send
scan order message sequentially to all routers stored in its letters and four numbers), accident location (Street and the
database to locate vehicles. While the second task is to receive sector), the vehicle speed(rollover sensor). Just before the
the “help” messages and prepares the accident report. Figure 3 impact, the sensors become activated stating the number of
illustrates the steps of the coordinator algorithm. passengers in the vehicle crash sensors which had been
activated (front, back, right side and left side) as shown in
Figure 4. Also a fire alarm sensor can be activated in case of
fire. In the case of an accident occurrence, the “help” message
can be sent to the router. Figure 5 illustrates packet frame
(Help message) which contains all information and status
about the car.

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 The Second and third components are wireless modules. The
first component is called router and the other one is called
coordinator. In the proposed system, we need one router for
each coverage area placed along to the road. All these routers
communicate with the coordinator and each router
communicates with all nodes (embedded boards attached to
Fig. 4 Distribution of Sensors inside car
the vehicle) in its coverage area. The forth and last component
is the RFID tags. In our proposed system, we need to locate
which sector in the router’s coverage area has the accident’s
event. That’s why we need to attach four RFID tags one for
each sector.

VII. Hardware Implementation

Fig. 5 Help message frame
Our proposal's hardware mainly consists of three parts (Node,
When the router receives a message, it distinguishes whether it Router and Coordinator). The node as shown in figure 7 is the
is a “help” message, where the router sends the message electrical circuit that is to be installed in the vehicle. It consists
immediately to the coordinator where the coordinator receives of EPROM which contains the encoded vehicle ID , speed
starts to process it and prepare the accident report. Otherwise, sensor , Microcontroller (Pic16f877a) , four Weight Sensors
in normal mode of operation (no accidents happened) the node one for each vehicle set , four impact sensors one for each side
repeatedly send other type of message “I'm here” message that of vehicle (front , back , right side and left side ) , RFID reader
informs the system the last location of the vehicle. When the that reads distributed tags on the road (each router coverage
router receives this type of message, it simply buffers it and area has four tags one for each sector) , microcontroller with
waits for the scan process completion of the received message program that exquisites data and form the packet to be sent
from the coordinator to batch all buffered messages. and finally the RF module .

VI. Intended Application

As shown in figure 6, to implement the proposed system we

need to install four main components. The first component is
an embedded system board; which should be attached to each
car. This board will represent the remote data acquisition
node. It exquisites the data from the vehicle and sends it with
wireless module to next network item (Router).

Fig.7 Node layout

The router has a simple task which can be achieved by using a

very simple program in microcontroller and RF module.
Finally the Coordinator's hardware is RF module, as shown in
figure 8, is attached to the main server where the rule base,
database and the administrator interface are located. The
Fig. 6 main components of the proposed system
coordinator then communicates with all routers and sends

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them sequential requests to send all buffered data (polling scan
method). On the other if an accident occurs, the router
immediately sends “help” message to the Coordinator
(interrupting method).

Fig. 8 RF Module
Fig. 9 shows Rule base
VIII. Software Implementation
IX. Comparison for Related Work
To demonstrate our idea, we made a proof-of- concept demo
which was applied on four streets where every street has its Our proposal Ref (6)
Title
installed router and four tags divided into four segments are on
1- Our proposal can 1-Reporting about the over
those numbered streets. Tags are from one to four, from left to detect accident as a real speeding vehicles to the
right. forbid I change the parameter basic two car number, time system and inform Police Station.
the supervisory program 2-The system can
speed and sensors when an accident occurs and is pressing on with immediately inform medical
the letter Q From the keyboard It represents the open Air bag -Accident location departments in case of
send the car order assistant to the router adds router to the (Street and the sector ) accidents.
-The vehicle speed just 3- Detect traffic jam.
message router ID then Coordinator sends a request to before the impact sensor
examine the router is then extracted a report of the incident activated
-The number of
and the available place following the incident - State sensors- passengers in the vehicle
the nearest hospital - the nearest point of fire if necessary. -Crash sensors which
Features had been activated (
System can also be queried for another place for the car by a front , back , right side
certain number. We used SQL Server as our database server and left side )
and Visual basic.net to build our demo. It also has been used -Rollover sensor status
-Fire alarm sensor status
Rule based Are as follows: 2- In our proposal , rule
base system used which
can predict the number
ambulance cars needed
for injured persons and
if we need fire truck or
not
3- Ask for the last
location of any vehicle.
The wireless module The transmitter module used
used in our proposal is is TWS 434A RF transmitter
Wireless
Low-Power Sub-1 GHz transmits serial data
module
RF Transceiver CC1101 modulated at 433.92 MHz

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 The coverage area is The coverage area is 24~103 case of accidents and reports detecting traffic jams. Our
Wireless 300~500 meters in open meters depending on the
module range area transmitter operating proposal can detect an accident on real time system and
voltage 2.5~12 inform the supervisory program with accident location, the
Cost Medium Low vehicle’s speed just before the impact sensor are activated, the
-Accident location location of accident
(Street and the sector ) number of passengers in the vehicle crash sensors which had
-the vehicle speed just been activated ( front , back , right side and left side ),
before the impact sensor
activated rollover sensor status and finally fire alarm sensor status. In
Information
received
-The number of our proposal, rule-based system is used which scans the
passengers in the vehicle
crash sensors which had
predicted number of ambulance cars needed for injured people
been activated ( front , and whether we need fire truck or not.
back , right side and left
side )
Pooling and interrupt Interrupt
Scanning type depending on the
information REFERENCES
Implementation Large Small
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