Khalid Tawfik Alkusayer, Ibrahim Khaled I Albarik,
Arrowad School, Riyadh, Central, SAUDI ARABIA
Traffic accidents at intersections are one of today`s frequent problems. In many countries, worldwide, traffic accidents are one of the highest causes of death and severe injuries, especially in the Middle East. Some social, economical, ecological, and of course health related problems are some of the many effects that have to be dealt with as an aftermath of these accidents
Smart Intersection System (SIS) project aims to develop a smart system to manage and coordinate traffic lights at intersections to reduce the likelihood of fatal car accidents. This would additionally result in, reducing drivers` frustrations and tension at intersections.
SIS addresses common problems at roads intersections. These problems were identified as, having traffic jams at one traffic light while other traffic lights are relatively not busy, having long cars pile up between two intersections resulting in intersection blockage and failure of timed traffic light systems or to be properly read by elders or individuals who cannot read English numbers.
The system was developed to use graded traffic lights of 12 rows (6 green and 6 red) to alert drivers of status of stop/go as suppose to timers. In addition set of 3 IR sensors were used to read the number of cars in a road while an Electronic Microcontroller (PARALLAX) is used to distribute time between traffic lights based on information collected from different sensors. The IR sensors are placed so that the last one detects cars that are at end of queue and at risk of blocking other traffic lights. The Microcontroller controls the switching of traffic lights from red to green and vice versa depending on the info received from the IR sensors. PBasic programming language was used to program the microcontroller.
In future development of the project, screening sensors that can be used to distinguish between separate bodies, and can efficiently read the number of cars in each intersection.