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International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2019, 9, 1-9 1

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Proposed Simple System for Road Traffic Counting

Ahmad A.A. Alkhatib, Adnan Hnaif and Tarek Kanan

Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan

Abstract: Background & Objective: Traffic congestion is a burning issue in most countries due to
the rapid growth of running vehicles and infrastructures with limited capacity. Congestion can be
ARTICLE HISTORY solved with Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) and traffic management. Most traffic management
measurement are aimed to improve the safety and flow of traffic, reduce traffic emissions and utilize
Received: September 17, 2018
Revised: October 21, 2018 traffic artery capacity more effectively. This paper proposes a new system to collect the required data
Accepted: October 24, 2018
for traffic management such as, number of vehicles, time and lane location information; using a
DOI: cheap infrared sensors and timers.
10.2174/2210327908666181107110441

Conclusion: The proposed method can take the length of the vehicle into account of traffic statistics
by measuring the car speed.

Keywords: Infrared sensors, intelligent traffic management, road traffic management, traffic congestion,
traffic efficiency, traffic optimization, vehicles counting.

1. INTRODUCTION new roads or infrastructure repair, it’s about intro-

Building new roads as a way of relieving heavy ducing Information System into transportation
traffic is not a feasible way all the time, as it has a management. These systems enable elements with-
high construction cost and lack of space in the ur- in the transportation system to become intelligent
ban areas where it is highly needed. As reported by incorporating sensors and so to communicate
by the US Federal Highway Administration’s with each other using wireless technologies, thus
Highway Statistics Summary to 1995, both the safety and traveler convenience would be in-
number of vehicles and the number vehicle miles creased. For the traffic management centers to be
driven have more than doubled in the past 25 in the maximum efficiency, easy operations and
years; this will lead to reduced speeds and in- useful information should be provided to the pub-
creased travel time. Which causes instabilities in lic and traffic control personnel in a timely man-
flow, more commonly known as “stop and go traf- ner. In order to design a smart Urban Traffic man-
fic.” [1]. On the other hand, the latest report from agement system; it should perform the following
the Department of Transport in the UK indicate functions: Data collection; Data fusion: Analysis
the huge increment in traffic every year since 1994 and processing; Decision; Action.
to 2018 [2] as in the below Fig. (1).
Normally, traffic management project targeted
As a result, the trends have shifted toward Ac- some or all of the following: Congestion Avoid-
tive Traffic Management Centers (ATMC) and ance; Priority-Based Traffic Management and Av-
The use of Intelligent Transportation Systems erage Waiting Time Reduction. According to
(ITS). So it’s not only thinking solely on building Folds et al. (1993), the mission of an ideal traffic
management center is "to facilitate the safe
*Address correspondence to this author at the Al-Zaytoonah movement of people and goods, with minimal de-
University of Jordan; Tel: +962796822985; lay, throughout the roadway system." [3].
E-mail: [email protected]

2210-3279/19 $58.00+.00 ©2019 BenthamScience Publishers

2 International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2019, Vol. 9, No. 1 Alkhatib et al.

Fig. (1). The annual increment of road traffic in great britain [2].

2. LITERATURE REVIEW surveillance of road ways as a priority of home-

The Impact of Traffic Management includes: land security. Digital technologies proliferated
Travel demands, Traffic flow on roads, Travel throughout everyday life, whether these technolo-
time, Journey length, Financial, Traffic flow gies are mobile phones, GPS, cameras and so on.
through toll points, Toll revenue, Public transport It tends to store data and adding a new modality to
fare revenue, environmental Impacts, Vehicle km the surveillance uses. One of the Projects is con-
travelled (by all modes), Emissions, Accessibility cerned with reducing congestion proposed by
Impacts and Air Quality [4]. (Downs, 2004) he concluded that traffic conges-
tion is inevitable but it must not grow unchecked
A comprehensive analysis of the current road [7]. (Monahan, 2007) argued that several policies
traffic safety situation and assessment of the cur- were developed that could effectively slow con-
rent approach to provincial management by (Oli- gestion’s growth including; building more roads;
ver et al, 2005) was required in the development High Occupancy Toll (HOT Lanes); ramp meter-
of Road Traffic Safety management strategy in the ing; intelligent transportation devices; adopt park-
western cape. Specific issues were concluded from ing cash-out programs and giving regional trans-
the analysis which includes: law enforcement, ed- portation authority more power [8].
ucation and communication, engineering and land
development, public transport and health emer- Another Project funded by the European
gency services [5] framework research and development programs
(2007) to developed traffic systems that aimed to
Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) was de- make the transport safer, efficient and environ-
fined by the directive of the European Union mentally friendly, either by targeting the infra-
(2010) as " systems in which information and structure or the vehicles themselves. however,
communication technologies are applied in the there are limitations of the goals achieved by fo-
field of road transport, including infrastructure, cusing on one element, so it becomes feasible to
vehicles and users, and in traffic management and develop what is called Co-operative system in
mobility management, as well as for interfaces which both elements communicate with one an-
with other modes of transport." [6]. other; I-WAY system as an example [9].
Many of the proposed studies in the field of On the other hand, (Dawling et al, 2010) stated
intelligent transportation system (ITS) involved that Active Traffic Management (ATM) is one of
Proposed Simple System for Road Traffic International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2019, Vol. 9, No. 1 3

Fig. (2). Hierarchal functionality of urban traffic control system [11].

the most commonly used techniques, in which ad- • A smart city traffic system should provide se-
aptation of controls in response to variations in
curity
demands, weather and changing incidents in order
to maintain the maximum productivity of traffic
management strategies. ATM has many elements In general traffic management require real-time
with different objectives such as; speed and signal information like Density, Type, Average waiting
control, geometric configuration and demand mod- time, pollution… etc. This information collected
ification [10]. by different type of sensors; then using one of the
communication technologies to send the collected
In order to provide a smart urban traffic control data to traffic control module for analysis and in-
system, a hierarchical management and functional telligent decision. Fig. (3) summaries the available
system should be used. (Nellore et al, 2016) pro- sensors and communication technologies for traf-
vided a view for hierarchical management in the fic management purposes.
following Fig. (2) [11].
Many projects have been designed for road
(Qureshi et al., 2013) argued that to reduce traffic management to optimize traffic and reduce
congestion in urban areas, the design requires a traffic problems in different countries. The
new traffic management system to consider the following Table (1) lists some of the projects
following [12]: deployed by entities in different countries for road
• Hierarchical road infrastructures for public traffic management.

transportation. 3. THE STATE OF THE ART

• Reliable information on real-time traffic The main idea of the proposed technique is to
cover the road lanes with an infrared transmitter
should be provided to users and traffic man- on a suitable height, right after the intersection or
agement systems. at the beginning of the road. The infrared transmit-
ter always “ON” sending infrared signal to the de-
• The traffic control system should be fast in tector at the ground in a line of sight connection.
taking decisions. As long as the detector receiving the signal, means
no vehicles crossing through, otherwise count the
• The highest priority to the emergency vehicles number of the broken connection.
at intersections to save lives and property. Once the vehicle breaks up the connection, a
• The system has to detect road accidents. timer will start and the counter will be increased
4 International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2019, Vol. 9, No. 1 Alkhatib et al.

Table 1. Road traffic management project.

Year of
Project Country
Completion

Intelligent Transport System (ITS) [13]

http://www.roadtraffic-technology.com/projects/hong-kong
A $423m Intelligent Transport System (ITS) project developed in Hong Kong’s nationwide Hong Kong 2010
road network. The project used Traffic Control and Surveillance System (TCSS) for traffic
counting, which cost $284.5m out of the full budget.

A Multi-Dimensional Model for Vehicle Impact on Traffic Safety, Congestion, and

Environment [14]
http://mioh-utc.udmercy.edu/research/ts-45/index.htm US 2011
The project budget was $80,064, it focused on the vehicle to vehicle (V2V) communication
and vehicle to light controller using DSRC technology, to improve the traffic flow and safety.
FastLane: Modelling and simulation of traffic flow [15]
http://www.its-edulab.nl/projects/fastlane%3A-modelling-and-simulation-traffic-flow
Fastlane is a distinctive project. It is a software simulator used to simulate instant traffic and
predict short term traffic flow on freeways. Dutch 2013
It relies on CCTV to collect data as input for simulation. The project helps in understanding
the traffic behavior and planning for traffic management specially in the unexpected occur-
rences of events.

Weather-Responsive Traffic Management Concept of Operations [16]

https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/weather/best_practices/WeatherConOps0103.pdf Cambridge-
2003
This project concerned with the impact of weather on traffic behavior and safety. This project UK
helps to make more effective decision to road traffic on the roadways.

Adaptive Traffic Signal Control System (ACS Lite) for Wolf Road, Albany, New York
[17]
New York 2014
https://www.utrc2.org/publications/adaptive-traffic-signal-control-system
It is a dynamic optimization system to control traffic light according to the current traffic.

ATIS for Indian Cities [18]

https://coeut.iitm.ac.in/umcsp/pdfweb/v2iitm_ATIS%20For%20indian%20cities_v2.pdf
India 2014
This project Deployed a 100 GPS and 32 Cameras on a 15 Km road stretch over 13 intersec-
tions with 4-6 lanes for road management and optimization.

Integrated Transportation System Management (CITSM)[19]

http://www.citsm.umd.edu/documents/abstracts-finished/milner-abstract.php
US In progress
The project granted $926,700 by the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) for traffic
monitoring using wireless HD surveillance.

NEXTRANS Project: Agent-based Traffic Management and Reinforcement Learning in

Congested Intersection Network [20]
https://www.purdue.edu/discoverypark/nextrans/assets/pdfs/Final%20Report%20072IY03.pdf US 2012
this project using a (VISSIM) Microscopic Traffic Simulation to evaluate traffic control on 20
intersections using reinforcement learning (RL) technique.
Proposed Simple System for Road Traffic International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2019, Vol. 9, No. 1 5

Fig. (3). Sensors and wireless technologies available for traffic management.

by one every time the timer exceeds Tth. This timer Car Speed (m/s) = 1meter/ T1meter (1)
will help us in taking the vehicle volume counted
in traffic statistic, especially when there are long Car Speed (km/h) = (1meter/ 1000) / (T1meter/3600)
vehicles or Lorries on the road it is not fair to be (2)
counted as one when it sometimes causes more In case of car speed (km/h) less than 5km/h
traffic jam than its double size, so counting it as then the car in considered to be in slow movement
two or more based on the number of times of Tth and the counter will be added only one time. If the
required for this vehicle to pass through the con- speed is more than this then:
nection. The transmitter and detector will be
placed after the traffic light or the intersection, this Tbroken connection = D (between the intersection and
will help in counting the only vehicles entered the the sensor) /car speed (m/s) (3)
lane. Normal cars are 4-6 meters long as in [21]; cars
Based on the very well-known concept of time= with longer length should be counted as a multiple
Distance / Speed, the more the speed is the less number for normal cars; so Tth is equal to the time
time required to cross the infrared scanners. Tth period of the broken connection for approximately
will depend on car speed and the (D) distance be- 5 meters car to pass through the connection on the
tween the traffic light and the infrared scanner. previously calculated car speed.
The vehicles might have speed range between (5 Tth = 5 meter/car speed (m/s). (4)
to 80) km or more regardless the speed limit at that
road. The distance will be different between inter- Now to take the volume of the traffic as a part
sections so it should be measured manually in be- of the statistics the counter should be increased for
tween the traffic light and the infrared scanners. cars more than 5 meters long. This can be done as
See the below Fig. (4). follows:
In order to measure the speed of the car, the K = Tbroken connection /Tth (5)
‘one Meter Check’ should be done. To do so, an-
In case of K > 1 then counter increased by (in-
other sensor and detector is required to be added at
teger K) otherwise the counter increased by one.
a one-meter distance from the first one, to calcu-
Calculating K helps in deciding Small and Medi-
late the speed, also to check in case the car is not
um Vehicle to be counted as one, while the very
moving status for any reason like traffic jam or
large and multi- carriages will be counted based on
accidents etc. So Timer (T1meter) started once the
how many times Tth passed while the connection is
first connection is broken, and ends at the broken
still disconnected. The numbers will be sent with
moment of the second connection.
6 International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2019, Vol. 9, No. 1 Alkhatib et al.

Fig. (4). Vehicle counting technique.

time details and lane information for further pro- sections to make decisions and controlling traffic
cessing using other Algorithms and techniques for lights. Thus, the cost of the chosen system devices
traffic optimization. See Flow Chart in Fig. (5). such as; Cheap infrared sensors; can reduce the
projects budget.
4. DISCUSSION
The proposed method provides all the required
The proposed technique will provide the neces- information for traffic controlling in low cost
sary advice to the responsible authorities on mat- compared to other systems components, which
ters of statistical traffic and traffic counting. The normally are CCTV cameras or magnetometer or
system can provide information about the number even ultrasonic sensors. The distinctive benefit of
of traffic, taking into account the vehicle volume, this work, other than simplicity and low cost, is
then using this information along with time, lanes that it is able to consider the vehicle volume in
number and location information to use it as a raw traffic counting. The long vehicle should be con-
data for road traffic optimization algorithms such sidered as multiple number of normal cars, to give
as genetic or multi- agent algorithm. etc. Further- more accurate figure on the traffic status.
more, Traffic Counting can help in finding a way
to reach the maximum road benefit to the biggest CONCLUSION
number of users with minimum expenditure, and
focusing the maintenance operations on the vital Road Traffic management still is a challenging
roads. issue for all countries. The first step for traffic
management is statistics and obtaining the number
Road Traffic Counting devices are very expen- of vehicle on the roads and its direction. We pro-
sive, the cost varied from 200- as in ROSIM mag- posed a new low cost and simple system by using
netometer detector; to thousands per device- such cheap infrared sensors to count the traffic on each
as Zerzega traffic detection device cost up to lane of the road. The technique based on installing
€1600. The cost is crucial for traffic management two infrared scanners on each lane at the begin-
systems, since traffic optimization requires a ning of the road to calculate car speed by using
knowledge of a number of before and after inter- the”1-meter check”. Then finding the K value to
Proposed Simple System for Road Traffic International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2019, Vol. 9, No. 1 7

Fig. (5). Vehicle counting algorithm.

8 International Journal of Sensors, Wireless Communications and Control, 2019, Vol. 9, No. 1 Alkhatib et al.

take the length of the vehicle into account, where [6] THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE
long vehicles should be counted as more than one COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION (2010)
'DIRECTIVE 2010/40/EU OF THE EUROPEAN
to set a real figure of the traffic jam. PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 7 July
2010 on the framework for the deployment of Intelli-
The resulted information can be used later for
gent Transport Systems in the field of road transport
traffic light controlling to reduce time waiting and and for interfaces with other modes of transport', Of-
avoid congestion. The numbers help to attract au- ficial Journal of the European Union, (), pp. .
thorities’ attention on which roads are vital and [7] Monahan, T. (2007) '“WAR ROOMS” OF THE
require maintenance and expansion, so it takes a STREET: SURVEILLANCE PRACTICES IN
TRANSPORTATION CONTROL CENTERS', The
priority on authorities’ schedule. Communication Review, 10(), pp. 367–389.
Future work will be focused on using the ob- [8] Downs, A. (2004) 'Why Traffic Congestion is Here to
Stay....and Will Get Worse', Transportation Research
served information in a suitable traffic optimiza- at the University of California, ACCESS Magazine.
tion algorithm to create a smart traffic manage- 25, pp.19-25.
ment system, such as; genetic algorithms, or multi- [9] Rusconi, G., Brugnoli, M., Dosso, P. "I-WAY, intel-
agent and other suitable AI technique to create a ligent co-operative system for road safety," 2007
full traffic management system. IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium, Istanbul,
2007, pp. 1056-1061.
[10] Dowling, R. G., & Elias, A. (2013). Active traffic
CONSENT FOR PUBLICATION management for arterials. Washington, D.C.: Trans-
Not applicable. portation Research Board.
[11] Nellore, K.and Hancke, G.P. (2016) 'A Survey on
Urban Traffic Management System Using Wireless
CONFLICT OF INTEREST Sensor Networks', Sensors, (), pp. .
The authors declare no conflict of interest, fi- [12] Qureshi, K. N., & Abdullah, A. H. (2013). A survey
on intelligent transportation systems. Middle East
nancial or otherwise. Journal of Scientific Research, 15(5), 629-642.
[13] Hong Kong Intelligent Transport System (ITS),
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Available at: http://www.roadtraffic-
technology.com/projects/hong-kong/ (Accessed: 18th
Declared none.
February 2018).
[14] Dr. Nizar Al-Holou (2012) A Multi dimensional Mod-
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