Traffic through - An effective right-turn-bay of signalized intersections for busy hours

Abstract

Sri Lanka, as a developing country, the traffic congestions are becoming severe day by day because of the population and the economic background. To overcome the congested areas, the traffic controlling light systems were introduced and used in most of the junctions. Existing traffic light system is based on the fixed cycle times for each phase, depending on the environmental conditions, geometry design of the junction and traffic movements of the particular junction. Among the most of the features at the road intersections, the feature called “Right-Turn-Bay” is an extra segment of lane which was introduced to the vehicles which are supposed to proceed right turning movement at the intersection. Because of the limited area of that lane segment, it can be filled easily. The proposed solution is to overcome the overflowing problem in the right-turn-bay by giving an extra cycle time period for the right turnings in busy time. For this real-time process, the image processing techniques were used for a video sequences, captured by a video camera to detect the arrival of vehicles at the bay and its count was gathered using the pixel-wise detection and blob tacking of the vehicle. The traffic light was controlled as usual and the additional functionality was to control the junction considering the maximum count and the current count at the bay. The controller is to decide whether the traffic should leave the bay or not by considering its parameters.