2020 IEEE Students’ Conference on Engineering & Systems (SCES)
July 10-12, 2020
Prayagraj, India
Real-time video monitoring of vehicular
traffic and adaptive signal change using
Raspberry Pi
Ayushi Gupta1, Dr.Charu Gandhi2, Vartika Katara3, Stuti Brar4
1 , 2, 3, 4
CSE Deptt., Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida, India
E-mail: ayushigupta8@gmail.com, charu.gandhi@jiit.ac.in, vartika2198@gmail.com,
and brarstutii@gmail.com
Abstract—Traffic congestion is a major predicament these days.
Even though it pervades all over, urban cities are the ones most
affected by it which leads to major wastage of time on traffic
junctions. While insufficient road capacity and ever-increasing
demand are somewhat interdependent, the delay of respective
traffic lights is hardcoded and not reliant on traffic intensity.
Therefore, the need for simulating and optimizing traffic control
in real-time to better accommodate this increasing demand
arises.This paper presents a method to use live video feed from
the cameras at traffic junctions for real-time traffic density
estimation. It also focuses on providing an effective traffic light
switch timer according to the vehicle density, thereby aiming at
reducing the traffic congestion on roads.
Index Terms--Image contouring, Image processing,
Raspberry Pi, Real-time video, Traffic management.
I. INTRODUCTION
In current times, road transportation is the crudest mode of
transport in all parts of the world. The vehicle density on roads
is increasing epidemically on a day to day basis Due to this,
traffic congestion in major cities has become indispensable.
Furthermore, inefficient traffic management of traffic causes
wastage of valuable time and fuel, Its adverse effects include
ease in air pollution, cost of transportation, and stress levels of
the drivers. So, it is very much necessary to design a system to
avoid the above casualties thus, preventing accidents,
collisions, and traffic jams. Using real-time analytics of data
from the video sources like cameras on traffic signals and
linking them to some trends, we can manage traffic flow much
better.
The traditional traffic signaling systems suffered from the
problem of inefficient time management since the signal
appeared green even if there is no passer-by. Image processing
has aided in removing such a problem [4]. The proposed
technique suggests a solution for reducing traffic congestion on
roads. It aims to replace the older system, where traffic lights
were hardcoded leading to unwanted delays at the signals. By
adapting the traffic signal timers to the vehicle density at a
given time, pause time at the signal can be reduced
significantly. Reduction in waiting time at the traffic signal will
lessen the number of accidents and also reduce fuel
consumption. This shall in turn help in controlling the air
pollution.
This paper is structured as follows: Section II presents a
detailed review of literature on traffic monitoring and vehicle
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detection. Section III provides a system overview of the
hardware used. Section IV presents the proposed method;
Section V summarizes the experimental settings along with the
experimental results and analysis. Finally, Section VI
concludes the paper with remarks.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
Numerous works have been done previously on traffic
monitoring and vehicle detection.
V. E. Dahiphale and S. R. Rao [1], presented a real-time
computer vision system for monitoring driver vigilance for the
prevention of accidents. They used a video camera and a
hardware system controlling the alarm system through
Raspberry Pi [9]. However, the system focused on driver
vigilance monitoring and paid no attention to the road traffic
density and time wasted waiting at traffic signals.
T. Tangkocharoen and A. Srisuphab[2], work detected the
vehicles using image processing techniques. They used the
AdaBoost ensemble method with a cascade classifier for
experimental modeling. They performed vehicle detection using
Haar-like object detectors. These detectors have a very low
processing power and a highly precise image of the vehicles is
needed. To get these high precision images, they fixed their
camera position. However, there is a certain limit to the types of
things it can detect. If it is given edge and line features, then it
will only be able to detect objects with clear edges and lines.
Thus, proving inefficient in case of low-quality camera video
capture.
TasnimSorwar, Sabbir Bin Azad, Sayed Rizban Hussain and
Azfar Isa Mahmood [3] have used the method of image
capturing using raspberry pi upon which image processing is
done. They have initially done grayscale conversion followed by
histogram equalization and morphological opening and closing.
The irrelevant part of the road is cropped and the area having
different vehicles is separated after which images are labeled
and counting is done to identify the count of vehicles with
respect to a threshold. Their model worked well on big vehicles
in a high-resolution image. The limitation of their project was
that it couldn’t identify smaller and three-wheel vehicles.
Gadekar et.al, [4] used the method of blob analysis and
background subtraction with template matching to identify
vehicles. Even though this method proved efficient and faster
than earlier methods, one major drawback can be a clear
background foreground relation requirement.
 A background subtraction algorithm [5] was also proposed
for vehicular detection and centroid of the bounding boxes of
the detected object, to track the objects. However, their primary
research focused only on the detection and tracking of objects
and maintaining a vehicular count in a monitored region.
A selection process for the interest region was proposed [6]
which were then applied to the image sequences, focusing on
segmentation by multiplying a mask image with the original
image. Then, morphological processing was done on the
segmented region, which is followed by contouring to
determine road occupancy and traffic signal color. The major
drawback was obtaining processed image sequences with
strong light intensity variations. In real-time, these are Figure 1. The Architecture of the Project
accommodated at a 10-minute interval, thus proving inefficient
in case of varied image sequences.
A method using [7] vehicle detection, tracking, and IV. PROPOSED METHOD
counting for highway videos has also been proposed. Here In this project, we have proposed a model combining Object
vehicles were detected using background subtraction, contour Contouring [5] [8] [9] and Object Centroid Identification [10],
detection, and optimized by using morphological operations. to identify the moving vehicles accurately.
Distance similarity measurement was used for vehicle tracking.
However, due to the detected vehicle’s video dataset not being Two video footage were captured for testing purposes, one
static in one particular frame, the overall accuracy of vehicle during day time and the other in evening hours to capture
detection got affected. various traffic densities and natural light settings. It was
captured from a foot-over bridge located over a one-way road
III. SYSTEM MODEL where vehicles of various sizes were crossing. Table 3 mentions
The proposed work calculates the number of vehicles in a the vehicular count calculated by the proposed method v/s the
one-way lane covering a limited range. Raspberry Pi Camera actual vehicle count, calculated manually. These methods, when
Module is used for capturing the video of the vehicles. The combined, accurately identify a moving object, thus aiding in
system uses an RPi 3 Model B+. The specifications of the same calculating the vehicular density.
are mentioned in Table I.
The steps involved in the proposed method have been
TABLE I. RASPBERRY PI SPECIFICATIONS
diagrammatically represented in Figure 2.

Processor Quad-Core 1.4GHz Broadcom

BCM2837 64bit CPU

RAM 1 GB

GPIO 40-pin extended

USB Ports 4 USB-2

Port CSI camera port to connect to a

Raspberry Pi

Power Source Upgraded Micro USB power source up

to 2.5A

LAN and BCM43438 wireless LAN and

Bluetooth Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) on board

Operating Raspbian Stretch OS

System

The pi is also connected to a breadboard which has LEDs Figure 2. Proposed Methodology
connected to indicate the working of a traffic light. Figure 1
depicts the created hardware architecture. Step 1: Lines are drawn over the video footage to get the
frame area for vehicle counting. Then, an OpenCV function
createBackgroundSubtractorMOG() is used to perform
background subtraction. This function is used for video

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background subtraction where it subtracts the moving object
from the static background. Figure 3 shows the result.
Step 2: Binary thresholding is performed to remove the
shadows from the footage. This method reduces the frame pixel
value to only two, thus reducing the computing power required.
Figure 4 depicts the same.
Step 3: Morphological Opening is performed i.e. erosion
followed by dilation to remove noise, as depicted in Figure 5.
Figure 3. Background subtraction
Figure 4. Binary thresholding
Figure 5. Morphological Opening
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Step 4: Morphological opening is followed by
Morphological Closing i.e. erosion performed after dilation to
join the white region. Figure 6 shows the same.
Step 5: Using the findContours() method of cv2 library,
contours are grabbed which identify only the moving vehicles;
the object coordinates calculated with respect to their movement
and position in the video capture. Once the contour has been
identified, a rectangle is drawn around the object and its
centroid is identified, which helps in uniquely identifying the
moving object, irrespective of its shape.
Figure 6. Morphological Closing
As the vehicles move through the Entry and Exit lines drawn
initially, a counter increases which shows the total contours
frame-wise. Along with that, a total count of the vehicles going
up and down the road is also displayed. The result is depicted in
Figure 7.
Figure 7. Contouring
Step 6: These contours control the traffic light change timer
which is calculated as follows:
For a 75m region, taking average vehicle length as 4m [11]
we identified that to declare the region as congested, it should
have the number of vehicular count as greater than or equal to
19. Thus, for varying vehicle count, the traffic light timers are TABLE IV. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF RESULTS
proposed as in Table II.
Paper Accuracy
V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULT
Tangkocharoen et al [2] 95%
Table III presents the vehicular count calculated by the
proposed model v/s vehicular count calculated manually. From Sorwar et al [3] 91.08%
the experimental result as presented, the calculated accuracy of
the method for real-time vehicle detection and tracking, and Kulkarni et al [5] 97.39%
traffic signal timings is 95.65% which makes it more accurate
than the existing models. E. Ospina et al [6] 95%

TABLE II. PROPOSED SIGNAL TIMINGS WITH RESPECT M. Soleh et al [7] 93%
TO TRAFFIC DENSITY
M. F Chowdhary et al [8] 95.12%
Vehicle contour count Traffic light indicator
Proposed Method 95.65%
<=5 Red light for 90s

5<count<=10 Green light for 20s
10<count<=15 Green light for 30s
15<count<17 Green light for 60s
count>=17 Green light for 90s
TABLE III. CALCULATED V/S ACTUAL VEHICLE COUNT
Count of Vehicles
Calculated Actual
4 3
5 4
6 6
4 4
2 2
1 1
7 6
3 3
1 1
6 7
7 6
3 3
5 6
Total: 66 63
A comparative analysis with the existing models is shown
in Table IV.
Kulkarni et al show an accuracy of 97.39% which is greater
than the proposed method’s accuracy. However, a major point
of contrast is that in [5], they are only focusing on improving
vehicle detection and tracking, whereas in the proposed
method, the accuracy is calculated for vehicle detection and
tracking, as well as traffic signal timer.
VI. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
With the advancement of rising innovation, modern and
instructive improvement there are more open doors for work
and a better extent of training just as examination in creating
urban communities. The way of life of individuals in metro
urban areas with huge volumes of the populace is similarly
influenced by different applications and administration
frameworks. In this way, as of now, a large portion of the
urban areas are changing into savvy urban areas by receiving
mechanized frameworks in every single imaginable division.
This proposed framework lessens the chance of congested
driving conditions, brought about by high red light deferrals, to
a degree and effectively. Here we have planned the framework
with the reason to clear the traffic as per the vehicular density.
Reducing congestion and waiting time will lessen the
number of accidents and also reduces fuel consumption which
in turn will help in controlling air pollution. Moreover, the
apprehension of our project can be enhanced for Coordination
Control which places traffic signals on a coordinated system so
that drivers encounter long strings of green lights. This will
also provide data for where improvements and information on
roads or construction are required and which are urgent like
which junction has higher waiting times.
In the future, some enhancements can be done on the
proposed method. The proposed method can be extended to
two-lane roads and four-point junctions. Image processing
techniques can be used for identifying emergency vehicles.
Apart from this, vehicle number plate identification systems
can be inbuilt into the system to identify rule violating
vehicles. The proposed model can be improved by adding edge
detection to identify accident-prone areas and vehicles. The
signal timer algorithm also lies in the future scope of this
project.

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