Intelligent Traffic Signal Control System For Ambulance Using
RFID And CLOUD
B.Janani Saradha1 G.Vijayshri1
1
UG students, Department of IT, Sri Sairam Engineering college ,
jananib0597@gmail.com, vshri2609@gmail.com
2
Associate Professor, Department of IT, Sri Sairam Engineering college, subharajan@gmail.com
Abstract
Road traffic congestion becomes a
major issues for highly crowded metropolitan
cities like, Chennai .Ambulance service is one
of the major services which gets affected by
traffic jams. To smoothen the ambulance
movement this paper have come up with the
solution of “Intelligent automatic traffic
control for ambulance ”. The proposed system
creates a android app that connects both the
ambulance and the traffic signal station using
cloud network. This system makes uses RFID
(radio frequency identification) technology to
implement the Intelligent traffic signal control.
The basic idea behind the proposed system is, if
the Ambulance halts on the way due to a traffic
signal, RFID installed at the traffic signal
tracks the RFID tagged ambulance and sends
the data to the cloud. After the
acknowledgment for the user through the
mobile app, the particular signal is made Green
for some time and after the ambulance passes
by, it regains its original flow of sequence of
signaling If, this scheme is fully automated, it
finds the ambulance spot, controls the traffic
lights. This system control the traffic lights and
save the time in emergency periods. Thus it
acts as a life saver project.
Keywords: RFID, cloud Database, mobile app,
Microcontroller 8051,LCD Display, GPS
Tracking System, Intelligent ambulance.
978-1-5090-6221-8/17/$31.00 2017
c IEEE 90
T.Subha2
I. INTRODUCTION
The main concept behind the paper is to provide
a smooth flow for the ambulance to reach the
hospitals in time and thereby minimizing the
delay caused by traffic congestion. The
Microcontroller based RFID system is used to
alter the traffic lights upon its arrival at traffic
light junction which would save a lives at
critical time. Radio Frequency Identification is a
tiny electronic gadgets that comprise of a small
chip and an antenna. The small chip is
embedded with information's about patience's
status and the ambulance current lane .The RFID
reader located at the traffic signal reads these
information from the RFID locator installed at
the ambulance . To avoid unnecessary traffic
signal changes, we cross refer the ambulance
current location and patience's condition using
mobile app registered by the ambulance driver..
In case of network failure, the RFID takes the
whole control.
This paper seems to be in a great need to make
free flow of ambulance without stucking into the
traffic. In the current situation itself,
transportation of a patient to hospital in
emergency conditions seems quite simple but
in actual it is very difficult during peak hours.
Moreover, the situation is gets worse when
emergency vehicles have to wait for other
vehicles to give way at intersections with traffic
signals . As the survey aye 95% of the heart
attack cases can be treated , if the ambulance can
reach the hospital at current time without
stucking into the traffic. In future it may get
even worse . In this cause Recovery action need
to be taken immediately. So, for our over
populated environment ,there is a real need for
this paper for the society to make easier day to
day transportations. This paper will help to
reduce blockage of emergency vehicles in
traffic and helps to provide immediate recovery.
• Main aim of installed the paper is to
provide communication between
ambulance and various devices at traffic
signals and so that the possibility for
traffic congestion is reduced.
• In this paper we contribute an overall
system to meet the above need. It can be
achieved by making use of two major
technologies namely,
RFID
mobile app with cloud access
and GPS provided
• RFID is to track the arrival of ambulance
at traffic up to some distance.
• Mobile app to authenticate emergency
and non-emergency conditions of
ambulance.
• GPS to track the nearest traffic signal
post to the ambulance and to send the
app data to that particular signal post.
• The data from RFID and app can be
given to the microcontroller to process
the results and makes the signal change
according to the result.
• Both RFID and mobile app integrate to
serve the system without failure at any
manner by alternatively working when
other fails in its action.
2017 Second International Conference On Computing and Communications Technologies(ICCCT’17)
This paper helps in saving victims from the peak
hour traffic. When it is being implemented it can
act as a live saving project.
II RELATED WORK
The four road intersection is a bottle neck for
each urban traffic control. Several smarter
methods need to be implemented for effective
traffic management.
The already existing system for Intelligent
Traffic Control System(ITCS) proposed in [2]
for emergency vehicles implements signal
change by using IR sensors or RFID
technology. They don’t have an alternative
method to control the flow, if anyone of the
technology fails. They don’t survey whether the
ambulance is in emergency state or not. Because
ambulance may also used in non-emergency
situations to provide facility to humans due to
their health condition. In such cases ,time limits
are not considered. so it is not needed to make
change in signals of traffic control system in
non-emergency cases. so in this paper special
implementation for non emergence condition as
been included.
The proposed work on [1] provides the basic
connective between cloud data ,traffic post and
the ambulances. Microcontroller based
intelligent ambulance system which can alter the
traffic lights upon its arrival at traffic light
junction was proposed on [2]. The work in [9]
proposed a traffic control system based on the
wireless sensor network and an alerting system
for red light crossing scenario to alert the drivers
on other sides to save their lives. This technique
is based on the queue length of the vehicles
standing by the sides of traffic post. The analysis
in [5] gives a Traffic control through sensor
based system implementation and its outcomes.
The RFID working and principles were
obtained from various site references
work[6],[7].
91
 SYSTEM DISADVANTAGES
Inductive Loop Depends on density of
1 Detector traffic, signal changes. o The mobile app is also provided with
Not specific with GPS to track the nearest traffic signal
ambulance traffic post to the ambulance and to send the
control app data to that particular signal post.

Infrared based Based on the 3.2 RFID technology

2 Detector temperature variants
of objects they cannot
detect differences in
objects. So inaccurate.
Weather sensitive
extremely expensive
3 Ultrasonic
Sensors Integrity is difficult
since the output is of
radiography format.
Table: comparison of the technologies.
The RFID uses a RFID tag for each ambulance ,
antennas along the road and RFID reader at the
signal post to track the position of ambulance.
3.3 Cloud storage
The cloud system is used to store both app data
and RFID data and provides access to the cloud
whenever needed.
3.4 Micro-controller unit

It acts as the centralized system to make traffic

control .The data from RFID and app can be
III PROPOSED METHODOLOGY
given to the microcontroller to process the
In our proposed system, we are trying to results and makes the signal change according
implement an intelligent traffic control system to the result.
for ambulance ,that comprise of the following
The system involves four scenarios as following:
phases:
Scenario 1: If an ambulance at emergency is
3.1 Android app
stopped by the traffic, then RFID gives the
App provides four major options : ambulance data and using app with cloud access
which give value ”emergency” by the user to
o Register –to register the ambulance to authenticate the change of signals in that lane to
the cloud green and all other to red.
o Blocked - If RFID reader fails, then
after certain period of time driver sends
a "BLOCKED" command to the
server.
-At this case, based on server
information the traffic signal is
cleared without verification.
o Emergency
o Non emergency --The android app is
used to specify current status of the
ambulance whether is in emergency or
non –emergency condition. Figure 1: Basic flow change of signal

92 2017 Second International Conference On Computing and Communications Technologies(ICCCT’17)

Scenario 2: If an ambulance which is not at
emergency situation is stopped by traffic, then
RFID gives the ambulance data and user gives
value “not emergency” using the app to cloud,
by which the signal will not unnecessarily
changes the flow.
Figure 2: Basic flow change of signal during
Non-emergence
Scenario 3: If an ambulance at emergency is
stopped by the traffic ,but the RFID fails to work
correctly ,then using the app the value “blocked”
is given to the cloud after the user receives timed
out notification by the app , which will make the
system to work without failure by changing the
signals.
Figure 3: Basic flow change of signal during
RFID Failure
2017 Second International Conference On Computing and Communications Technologies(ICCCT’17)
Scenario 4: If an ambulance at emergency is
stopped by the traffic ,but the network fails. So
that we can’t access through mobile app , at that
condition RFID makes the full role play by
sending continuous data to system over a long
period of time, which makes the system to rum
massively by signal changing criteria.
Figure 4: Basic flow change of signal during
network failure
Thus by this alternate methods to implement the
system without failure can be done.
IV IMPLEMENTATION OF WORKING
SYSTEM
4.1 RFID Technology
Radio Frequency Identification(RFID) is a
tiny gadget which uses radio waves to read and
capture information of the tracking object. It has
three main components namely(1)tag,
(2)antenna and (3)reader. In our system, the
tracking vehicle that is, ambulance is provided
with the RFID tag which comprise of 3 fields to
store the data.(a)EPC-Electronic Product Code
for vehicle ID number ,(b)type of
vehicle,(c)road lane number. The antenna is
used to collect data from the tag and transmit it
to the reader. The reader is placed at some
distance from the traffic signal, which may be
mounted on road or platform that reads the from
the tag by propagating RF signals to and from
the object tag. After reading data from tag,
reader sends it to traffic light system.
93
 4.3 Integrating RFID Reader with
Microcontroller

The RFID reader which contains the vehicle

details of the approaching ambulance need to be
connected with the microcontroller. The RFID
reader contains 9 pins configured. The 7th pin
which contains the ambulance details is
connected with the microcontroller. Here 8051
microcontroller with 40pins is used. The 7th pin
of RFID reader is connected with p3.5(15th pin)
of the microcontroller. To display the details in
LCD the output pins of microcontroller i.e.,
from p0.0 to p0.7 is connected to D0 to D7 pins
of LCD display.

Figure 5: Basic flow showing connection of

RFID tag, antenna, reader, microcontroller
and traffic signal.

4.2 RFID circuit in traffic signal

RFID is a tiny electronic gadgets that comprise

of a small chip and an antenna. This antenna
sense the tagged ambulance and alters the reader
RFID to get the vehicle unique identification
number. The received ID is passed to the
database. After the authentication from the
server, the traffic signal is cleared for
ambulance. In case of network failure, generated
RFID is programmed to clear the signal. In case
of RFID failure, based on the mobile app
command ,signals are activated.

1. Retrieve status and device ID signals from the

device using RFID reader
2.Store the device ID in microcontroller.
3.Get the device status from the cloud server.
4.microcontrollor program is written to satisfy
all four conditions discussed above.
5.Based on the requirement traffic signal is
changed to green
Figure 6: Circuit showing architecture
diagram at traffic light post

94 2017 Second International Conference On Computing and Communications Technologies(ICCCT’17)

4.4 Android Mobile App Over All application implementation:

Today we are living in an society where our 1. backend - Java SE JDK v6.0
thinking is not possible without Smartphone’s. 2. frontend - Java SE JDK v6.0
So in this paper, Android app is developed to 3. Tools -android studio (android
provide additional information about the
development),Android SDK tools
patience's status(EMERGENCY button present
4. Database -mysql
in his mobile app) and current location using
GPS system to the server database. The server in
turn sends location and status information to the
traffic signal controller. The traffic signal is
changed ,after cross verification from the RFID
reader. If RFID reader fails, then after certain
period of time driver sends a "BLOCKED"
command to the server . At this case, based on
server information the traffic signal is cleared
without verification. Current location is sensed
using GPS installed in the mobile. GPS or
Global Positioning System is a network of
orbiting satellites that send precise details of
their position in space back to earth. The current
location information is send to the traffic signal
controller through cloud. Hence, the app as
basically four buttons
E.

Figure 8: Data flow from cloud to traffic

signal post

V. CONCLUSION

Human life is precious and must follow

safety measures very conscious in all aspects
this of course includes ambulances services too.
In this, by using intelligent ambulance system
we can achieve the uninterrupted service of the
traffic control system by implementing the
alternate methods for signal change to allow
flow control. The accuracy of the RFID is more
than Camera’s so our proposed paper also
improves the performance of traffic light
Violation Detection System. This system is cost
effective ,multiple usage and deployed using
trending IOT ,which is more efficient.
Figure 7: Basic Application development
2017 Second International Conference On Computing and Communications Technologies(ICCCT’17) 95
 This system will reduce accidents which often [7]http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all
happen at the traffic signal intersections because
other vehicles have to huddle to give way to the [8] Niketa Chellani#1,Chirag Tahilyani#1
ambulance services. This life saver project must #1 Student, Electronics and Telecommunication
be implemented in the traffic forums to aid the Dept, TSEC, Mumbai University
public in good manner “ Traffic Congestion Detection and Control
using RFID Technology “.
VI. FUTURE WORK
We are thinking to extend our idea by [9] Alan Benksy, “Short-range Wireless
Communication”, Communications Engineering
implementing shortest location and way to
Series, by Newnes, Elsevier Inc., 2nd edition.
hospital, to treat patients and also alert the
recommended Doctor in that hospital by
providing initial medical details of patient like [10] Patrick J.Sweeny II, “RFID for
BP, blood group, heart rate, etc..which will merit Dummies”, by Wiley Publishing Inc.
the treatment more comfortable and reduce the [11] Faisal A. Al- Nasser, Hosam Rowaihy
time delay. Facility to store details of several “Simulation of Dynamic Traffic control
patients over long periods of time can be system based on Wireless sensor network”,
provided in cloud environment. IEEE Symposium on Computers &
Informatics 2011, pp40-45.
VII. REFERNCES

[1] Dr. A. Balamurugan1, G. Navin Siva

Kumar2, S. Raj Thilak3, P. Selvakumar4HOD,
Professor,Sri Krishna College of Technology,
Coimbatore – 42, Tamilnadu, India
"Automated Emergency System in Ambulance
to Control Traffic Signals using, IoT "

[2] Pratyush Parida1, Sudeep Kumar Dhurua2,

P. Santhi Priya3 "An Intelligent Ambulance
with Some Advance features of
Telecommunication "

[3] http://mbaigrfidreport.blogspot.com/

[4] https://www.researchgate.net

[5] Mr.S.Iyyappan 1, Mr.V.Nandagopal

"AUTOMATICACCIDENT DETECTION
AND AMBULANCE RESCUE WITH
INTELLIGENT TRAFFIC LIGHT
SYSTEM"

[6] Sensor node and RFID information via

Traffic_light_control_and_coordination.
wwwaten.wikipedia.org/wiki/

96 2017 Second International Conference On Computing and Communications Technologies(ICCCT’17)