Design and evaluation of a microcontroller sensor based traffic light control system at T-junction in Okene, Kogi state, Nigeria.

Abstract

Vehicular travel is increasing in Kogi state as more people are going or coming back from Abuja being headquarter of the country, and this increase in the number of vehicle on the road especially during the weekends has lead to congestion at road-intersections thereby increasing time wasting of the people at the road, chaos by the pedestrians crossing the junction and most at times leads to accidents. In the light of the above, it is imperative to recognize the need to design a traffic control at the junctions to ensure orderliness of movement of vehicles, goods and pedestrians. This paper presents a microcontroller sensor based traffic light control system that has the ability to control any type of T-junction based on traffic density, in an attempt at curbing traffic offences. It employed infrared (IR) sensor placed on each lane to sense the presence and absence of vehicles and reacts accordingly, the controlling device (AT89C52 Microcontroller) that monitor the output of the sensor and switches the LEDs (Red, Yellow or Green light) in a particular sequence based on the program loaded into it to control and manage heavy traffic congestion in the junction.