A Real Time Traffic Management System

SadafKhalid Rana Irfan Younas Sehrish Mahmood

University of Arid Agriculture HITEC University HITEC University
Rawalpindi, Pakistan Taxila Cantt, Pakistan Taxila Cantt, Pakistan
Sadaf khalidrana@yahoo.com iyounas 10 l@gmail.com sehri 18@yahoo.com

Abstract-one of the major issues of our daily life is traffic
congestion. To help solve the traffic congestion problem, a
traffic advisory system is proposed to identify the threshold
capacity of a road segment. Threshold capacity measures the
number of vehicles which can be allowed to pass over a certain
road segment without causing congestion. Threshold capacity
is used for suggesting improvements of road segments.
Congestion information can subsequently be provided to
traffic management authorities for improvement of the
conditions of road segments. The traffic advisory system is
designed using fuzzy logic to determine the threshold capacity
of a road segment. To estimate the tendency of traffic flow at
different junctions a neural network is designed. Furthermore
an algorithm is proposed, which measures the effects of these
improvements. Testing of proposed system is accomplished
through simulation.
Keywords: traffic congestion; fuzzy logic; neural network
proposed system also identifies the effects of improvements
on other roads. The system can be integrated with other
measures of fighting traffic related issues like traffic
signaling and delay estimation etc.
This paper is organized as follows : section II describes
the proposed approach , section III presents the results and
discussions and conclusion is briefed in section IV.
II. PROPOSED ApPROACH
The proposed system requires (1) determination of
threshold capacity, (2) calculations of current flow and
tendency of traffic flow at traffic junctions. Fuzzy logic is
used for determination of threshold capacity for a certain
road segment, current flow is measured using sensors and a
neural network is designed for the determination of tendency
of flow.

1. INTRODUCTION
Traffic congestion problems are commonly encountered
in our daily life. Congestion may occur due to various
conditions such as inadequate number of lanes, rough road ~ -,-- ...
surface and poor road visibility. The consequences of traffic
congestion are known to be rather expensive .
By improving road conditions, traffic congestion
problems can be solved to get smooth traffic flow on roads.
Traditionally road conditions are improved on the basis of
experience of transportation experts. Considerable work is
done on delay estimation [1, 2] [6], using traffic signaling
techniques [3,4] and traffic management techniques [5, 7] &
[8]. However, there is still a great deal of research effort
required on improvement of traffic conditions .
In this research we propose a method for identifying
roads which need to be improved as well as the conditions
required to improve those roads. In this way traffic
management authorities are made capable of improving
conditions in a systematic manner. To develop our proposed Eff ects of Improv ements

system we have floated the concepts of threshold capacity,

current flow and tendency of flow.
Threshold capacity refers to amount of space on a road
that allows a specific number of vehicles to pass. Current
flow means the number of vehicles which are currently
running over a road in time 1. Tendency of flow means the
trend of dispersion of vehicles at intersections in different
directions . The system proposed in our study is an innovative
idea since current literature lacks research on improvements
of traffic conditions and their effects on other roads. The
designed system is an automated system that helps the traffic
management authorities to identify road segments for
improvement and the conditions to improve them. The
Figure I. Proposedsystem
An algorithm is outlined, which shows the effects of these
improvements on other road segments of the city map. The
improvement on a particular road segment always has an
effect on other segments as it increases the flow of traffic. To
improve a road segment one should always keep in mind that
traffic volume of the successive segments increases
accordingly. Our proposed algorithm identifies the following
questions: What to improve? And where to improve? The
proposed algorithm depends upon threshold capacity, current
flow and tendency of flow.

978-1-4244-4520-2/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE

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 A. Determination ofThreshold Capacity
We define threshold capacity as the number of vehicles
which can pass through a road segment without causing
traffic congestion, i.e. smooth flow of traffic is maintained.
. Fuzzy logic is used to determine the threshold capacity,
In that road conditions are input variables for fuzzy inference
system and the output of fuzzy inference system is threshold
capacity. In coming subsections we have discussed the
conditions or inputs of the fuzzy inference system which
include number of lanes, road surface and visibility.
1) Number of lanes of roads: One important parameter
influencing traffic congestion is the structure of the road.
Road structure is described by the number of lanes on that
particular road. As the numbers of lanes are increased, traffic
congestion level improves.
A road where tendency of traffic volume is large should
contain more number of lanes, which will help the flow of
traffic and will negate congestion. Number of lanes, as fuzzy
input is provided by three fuzzy sets. These are minimum
number of lanes, average number of lanes and maximum
number of lanes. In the proposed method we limit the
maximum number of lanes up to five. A road containing only
one lane is considered as minimum number of lane road a
road containing two or three lanes is considered as average
number of lane road. Similarly a road containing four or five
lanes is considered as maximum number of lane road.
2) Road Surface: Road surface depicts the condition of
road. There are chances of a road being in a bad condition
even if it contains maximum number of lanes. For good road
condition the surface of road should be smooth and not
spoiled. Rough and uneven roads are always subject to traffic
congestion, and ill traffic flow. For better traffic flow, the
surface of roads must be smooth. Our fuzzy inference system
is considering road surface as an input variable. It can be
rough, average and smooth and these considered as fuzzy
sets of this fuzzy input.
3) Visibility: The visibility factor is considered only in
night mode because at day time, visibility of a road is
considered as always good. In night mode the visibility is
very effective for flow maintenance. Visibility in context of
a) Ranges of fuzzy inputs: First input of the fuzzy
inference system is the number of lanes and its range is from
zero to five. Second one is road surface and its range start
from zero up to one. Third and final input of the FIS is
visibility and its range is from zero to one.
b) Membership functions of fuzzy inputs: Number of
lanes consists of three membership functions i.e. minimum
number of lanes ranging from (1, 2.5), average number of
lanes with a range of (1, 5) and maximum number of lanes
which has a range from (3 to 5). Road surface is divided into
three membership functions i.e. rough, its range is from (0.5,
1), moderate with a range from (0, 1) and smooth with a
range of (0, 0.5). Visibility has also three membership
functions. These are bad visibility and its range is from (0.5,
1), average visibility with a range from (0, 1) and good
visibility has its range from (0, 0.5). We have constructed the
membership function by using triangular shape. It has well
defined boundaries, faster computational speed, easy design
and demands less memory.
c) Graphical and mathematical representation of
linguistic variables: In this subsection we present some
graphical and mathematical models which are developed in
fuzzy inference system for threshold capacity determination.
There are three fuzzy sets i.e. minimum, average and
maximum. The ranges are also shown such as ranges of the
Minimum start from 1 to 2.5, Average from 1 to 5 and
Maximum from 3 to 5. Following is the mathematical model
for fuzzy input number of lanes, where Jl describes the
membership of element x. Mathematical models for each of
the other fuzzy sets are developed in similar fashion.
I for x ~ 1
J..lMinimum = 2.5 - x
{ for 1 ~ x ~ 2.5
1.5
x-I
for 1 ~ x ~ 3
2
J..l Average
5-x
for 3 ~ x ~ 5
2

{
this study is the level of a visibility of a certain road in night
mode over a period of time (months, years) not a particular
~ for 3 ~ x ~ 5
day. Clouds, dust etc come into play only in a system which
u Maximum = 2
is on a daily basis. Traffic flow can be affected in case of 1 for x ~ 5
poor condition of light on a road. The visibility of a road can
Membership function plots
be improved by providing extra light poles at roads. The
determination of threshold capacity is based on visibility
only in evening, night and morning. To implement the factor
of visibility we have split it into three fuzzy sets which are
poor visibility, average visibility and good visibility.
All of these inputs (number of lanes, road surface and
visibility) are used to design a rule base Fuzzy Inference
System (FIS).
4) Development of FIS for threshold capacity: This
section describes how to construct the fuzzy inference
system in MATLAB by using the fuzzy logic tool box. FIS 4 5 6 7 10
consists of five steps, as discussed below. output variable "Optimalcapac~y"

Figure 2. Output membership functions

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 Figure 2 show the graphical representation of the fuzzy
inference system for output i.e. threshold capacity. It
consists of five fuzzy sets that include very small , small,
medium, high and very high. The ranges of these sets are
also shown in figure 2, such as ranges of very small starts
from 1 to 3.25; small starts from 1 to 5.5, medium from 3.25
to 7.75, high from 5.5 tolO and very high from 7.75 to 10.
AB. Now we have to determine how many vehicles are
moving to what road segment after leaving junction B. If we
suppose that there are three roads leaving junction B, i.e. BC,
BD and BE, then some of those extra vehicles will move to
BC, some will move to BD and some will move to BE. This
is in fact the tendency of traffic flow at junctions which is
very important to be known .

B. Determination ofCurrent Flow

C u rrent Flow = 30
Current flow is the number of vehicles currently present Thre shold C a )l;ilc ity = 20 ;. I ~,
on road segment in time t over a certain period of time. It 30 120
describes the current situation of traffic and congestion at
any particular road. It is not only measured for a certain time
of a day, but rather it represents the traffic volume of a road
over a period of time (number of months or annual). The
current flow is detected by using sensors.
In this research, current flow is important to improve the
road conditions . Threshold capacity and current flow are
used to make improvements in system. If the current flow is
more than the threshold capacity then road conditions are
unable to handle the traffic flow and needs to be improved.
The next step is to determine the conditions influencing the
threshold capacity in order for it to be improved. After
improving the conditions, we need to measure the effects of Figure 3. Road AB before improvements
the improved conditions on other roads. These effects must
be known, as they are important to determine the influence We have used Neural Network (NN) for the determination of
of updated conditions upon whole of the city map. Random tendency of flow at junctions. It is trained on historical
numbers are generated to represent the number of vehicles statistical data. For practical implementation , random data is
on the road, to be used in the traffic advisory system. generated to train the neural network. A trained neural
network is able to predict the tendency of flow at junctions.
C. Determination ofTendency ofFlow at junctions
As this is a statistical estimation problem, we have used feed
Tendency of flow at junctions is an important factor for forward linear layer type of neural network .
the proposed advisory system. Tendency of flow at junction
is the determination of direction in which different vehicles
are moving from a junction. To develop our traffic advisory t=j Network Size
system we have to determine the percentage of vehicles , M 5et the rurber d ne...-ons il the feed-torward networt'Shidjen l.!lyer.

moving straight, turning right and turning left from a Hidden lilyet" Re1:OPunend",tio n

RetlSfl to ttVsp¥ld eod eceese the rurber

junction. This tendency of vehicle movements is determined dne...-ons t tl1enetwork does not perforrn
wei ¥ tertr.,n-q .
to measure the effect of improvements of a road condition on
other roads.
As conditions of a road are improved, the flow of traffic Archit ed ut e

changes becomes faster as compared to the traffic flow

where conditions were not changed. Due to faster flow of
vehicles, the current flow of upcoming roads becomes larger
since the previous road is producing vehicles relatively at
faster rate.
For example we improve the conditions of a road AB as ,. Chan!)... the num M r of neurons if des irl"d, then d ick [Newt] t o cont inue .

displayed in figure 3. Suppose the current flow of AB is 30

and threshold capacity of AB before improvements is 20
then after improvements it becomes 30. Before the
improvements, the threshold capacity was not appropriate
because optimal was 20 and current flow was 30.
Improvements were required to make the threshold capacity
more appropriate so that it becomes equal to the current flow.
One important observation made is that after the
improvement the flow became smoother and vehicles leaving
junction B were more populated with vehicles , as there are
10 extra vehicles crossing junction B due to improvements of
Figure 4. Devised NN for the determination of the tendency flow
1) Development of NN for tendency of flow : A neural
network for the determination of tendency of flow at
junctions is illustrated in figure 4. This devised neural
network is a feed forward having translim transfer function,
two layers, twenty hidden neurons, one input and three
outputs. It is pertinent to mention here that the network
designed in the coming text is a template of network which
is to be designed for each of the road link in whole of a road

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 network. Furthermore the trammg data used for the Figure 7 is depicting the training, validation and testing
implementation of the neural network is a set of one of results as well as their comparison with target vector.
hundred instances. One can train a similar network on more
or less one hundred instances of data. So it is not necessary " I ,
to train the network upon a specific set of data instances.
We have found satisfactory results on training data of one
hundred instances. T~ningOutputsvsTar9ets,R=O ,:a:67 YalidationOlJtputs rs. TarQets ,R=O~$77 TestOutputsvs Targets,R=0 4:!&1
Another important consideration of the problem of ~~T;::::!'~±::::::::::;-I :6 ;;; :6rr=::::==!i:-=ii
~ 0 Training DataPoints 1. 0 ValidatiooD.taPomls 2: 0 TestOat,poinl'!
tendency of flow at junctions is the time of day which is ~ lJ - BestlinearH ~ lJ - Besl Uoe.r Fd t lJ - SestlinearFa
~ 25 ·······A=T
considered in a training set. The proposed neural network is B ~

~
······· Aoj '<t .··.··.A=T

not specific to the training data of a specific time of day. For ~ 2J !JJ
real implementation of this research the training data should "i tl / o ..",.",,·
be collected for a fixed interval. Usually this interval is fixed J 10 0 r-

as one hour, which is why we recommend this interval to be i5

<. 8 °
of one hour. Summarizing our discussion, it is important to L---,';-----,o,------!.
JJ
8 00 00 ° tl ° JJ
mention that real implementation of this research requires 10
TargetsT
11 5 to
Ta~ etsT
training the neural network for each road link upon a number
of training data for each hour.
In this subsection we illustrate how the neural network
for determination of tendency of flow at junctions is Figure 7. Training , validation and testing results with for target vector
designed.
a) Input Vector: Input vector is a matrix consisting of D. Algorithm for Effects ofImprovements
multiple values of inputs of the neural network. In our case, Finally we have developed an algorithm to calculate the
the only input is the number of vehicles crossing a certain effect of improvements as well as the roads where the
junction. We have constructed an input vector of hundred improvement is required. The proposed algorithm notation is
values of vehicles which are shown in figure 5. according to the algorithms of (Cormen et al., 2001). The
steps of the algorithm are as follows:

ADVISORY_ALGO(u ,v,OptimaICapacity,TendencyOfFlow,
Changedoptimalcapacity)
Q=empty
ParentQ = empty
Diff(u,v) = Changedoptimalcapacity(u,v) - OptimaICapacity(u,v)
Set threshold
Set color all junctions to write
Color{ul = black
Figure 5. Definition of input vector p Push v in Q
Push u in ParentQ
b) Target Vector: Target vector is a matrix consisting of While Q is not empty and diff > threshold
multiple values of target of the neural network. It shows the Pop V from Q
Pop u from ParentQ
dispersion of vehicles from the particular junction.
For each adjacent junction w of v
Dispersion means the percentage of vehicles moving left, If color [w) = white
straight and right. In this way there are three outputs of one Diff (v,w) = Diff(u ,v) * (TendencyOfFlow (u,v,w) /100)
input. Target vector consisting of hundred columns is CurrentFlow (v,w) = CurrentFlow (v.w) + diff(v .w)
constructed as shown in figure 6. Each column represents Pushwin Q
Push v in ParentQ
three outputs.
Color[v) = black

.-,. Data : t r;]§ rgJ

Val u e
III. RESULT AND DISCUSSIONS
[25 10 51 5 20 5 10 20 510 10 10 10 510 10 10 5 610 10 20 10 5
10 15 10 10 30 10 10 15 7 10 205 20 4 7 12 175 10 20 5 105 10 The simulation results of proposed system are discussed;
15 10 5 15 10 5 10 10 3 5 10 5 9 3 5 20 10 7 5 13 10 155 106 10 which shows the effects of improvements as well as the
determination of segments requiring improvements.
<11: JJI!, JI > To simulate the results of the improvements on any road
segment or link, first of all a link has to be selected, by
Cancel
clicking on any road link the corresponding time of day
condition of that link is displayed in the left bottom comer.
Figure 6. Definition of target vector t Figure 8 depicts information of the link 4 to 3 and the results
are shown in figure 9.

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 traffic which is supposed to run from junction 3 to these two
0 - - -0====0 - -0 roads. Similarly this effect will spread to upcoming road as
826/838 828/814
I
''''~i 'I"~'
I
~"~i ~"'I'
well.

o ===:::::::= 0 ====0 0 IV. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

814/002 8121826
In this research we have proposed a traffic management
system called a traffic advisory system. This proposed
system is an innovative idea to assist traffic management
t OD , . n<l'" •• • f .... IInk '.j.- ~3J 81H847

= 0 ::::: 0) ==:::::::= 0
848/820 authorities. It will help them to improve the conditions where
i- !n>p,.'...' n "'nOQ. O(hnl l.l- >3f (' .. ~ 1.l- >3.
it is required. Importantly it tells the authorities about the
I :: Ncd>trofL-. -)-- ::;~~.
: Ro.-JS>.rl>o: e - -r:-. l.=I orV..t4ly
effect of improvements in traffic conditions on other roads.
These improvements will be effective in maintaining an
• " " ":~:""""D Levdorv..,.,. 1
ThrtlholdC., 1IC1f
r ,·-
~I 'Ilm b.IdC.. ..". ~~

...~
appropriate and proper flow of traffic at different roads of a
certain city.
Figure 8. Current flow/threshold capacity (link 4, 3) The proposed system is constructed using soft computing
techniques i.e. fuzzy logic and neural network. It
In figure 8 one can easily identify that the road (4, 3) is incorporates the benefits of both fuzzy and neural approaches
having the threshold capacity of 802 but the current flow is to solve the problem. The results and validations of proposed
843. It means that improvements are required at road link (4, system are provided using simulations.
3). It shows that the tendency of traffic flow at junction 3 As a future direction it would be interesting to integrate
(from 4 to 3) is 62 percent left and 38 percent straight. other traffic related solutions. One entity of integration with
To improve the conditions at road link (4, 3) first we take a the proposed system is signal controllers.
look at the conditions of (4, 3). Though the conditions of(4,
3) are quite satisfactory, but not enough for the traffic that is
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Figure 9. Effects of improvement at road (4, 3)

As the conditions of road (4, 3) are improved, the effect of

simulations results is shown in figure 9. The current flow of
roads (3, 2) and (3, 7) is also changed. The current flow of
(3, 2) is changed from 802 to 879 and the current flow of
road (3, 7) is changed from 818 to 895. The current flow of
these two roads is changed because of extra volume of

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