THE USE OF TRAFFIC LIGHTS FOR THE CONTROL OF TRAFFIC ON OUR ROADS

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ABSTRACT

This research work is conducted to determine and analyze the used of traffic control system and how the traffic light and lamp, function in order to reduce traffic jam and road congestion in the streets and roads of Calabar metropolis. Then commercial activities will be at standstill without a good road network and traffic coordination facilities across Nigeria and the absence of traffic light at any junction often leads to congestion on that route. The implementation of this system is made possible with the use of Microsoft visual basic

6.0 programming  language.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE…………………………………………………………………………………

CERTIFICATION         i

DEDICATION     ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS       iii

ABSTRACT        v

TABLE OF CONTENTS        vi

CHAPTER ONE  1

1.0     INTRODUCTION         1

1.1     OVERVIEW        1

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 3

1.3     OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY        5

1.4     SCOPE OF THE PROJECT    5

1.5     DEFINITON OF TERMS       6

CHAPTER TWO 8

2.0     LITERATURE REVIEW        8

2.1     A BRIEF HISTORY OF TRAFFIC LIGHT         8

2.2     TECHNOLOGY  9

2.3     HOW TRAFFIC LIGHTS ARE MOUNTED       10

2.4     PEDESTRAIN SCRAMBLES          12

2.5     CONTROL AND COORDINATION OF TRAFFIC LIGHT  13

2.6     TRAFFIC LIGHT PRE-EMPTION   15

2.7     TRAFFIC LIGHTS AND THE LAW         17

CHAPTER THREE       20

3.0     ALGORITHM AND LOGIC DESIGN       20

3.1     ALGORITHM      20

3.2     ALGORITHM FOR SUB PROGRAMS     21

3.3     PROGRAM FLOW CHART   27

CHAPTER FOUR         38

CODING AND IMPLEMENTATION       38

4.1 PROGRAM LISTING       38

4.2     PROGRAM OUTPUT   41

4.3     HOW TO RUN THE PROGRAM    45

4.4     REASONS FOR CHOICE OF THE LANGUAGE        46

4.5     VISUAL BASIC LIMITATION        48

CHAPTER FIVE 49

5.0     SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION  49

5.1     SUMMARY         49

5.2     CONCLUSION    50

5.3     RECOMMENDATIONS         51

REFERENCES    53

CHAPTER ONE

1.0     INTRODUCTION

1.1     OVERVIEW

All over the world, goods, services and people are conveyed from one place to another. This movement known as transportation could either be by air, land or sea. On any of these routes there are established mechanism and rules for safe navigation. The government of any nation recognizes the need for safe and free flow of traffic by setting up special agencies and ministries to oversee the smooth operation of this sector.

In Nigeria, the federal ministry of transport is saddled with the responsibility of ensuring the infrastructural development of the entire sector nationwide. At the state level (In Cross Rives State) the state ministry of transport carters for the needs of this industry. Among such responsibility is the building and maintenance of road networks across the states and installation of traffic post/lights at busy routes and major junctions especially in the city of Calabar.

To ensure that all traffic laws are obeyed by both commuters and pedestrians, the federal road safety commission was established by the government of Nigeria in 1992. The commission was charged with the responsibilities of policy making, organization and administration of road safety in Nigeria

Furthermore, the traffic police – an arm of the Nigeria police force (NPF) provide traffic. Coordination services at junctions (at the traffic post) and also prosecutes defaulters.

Commercial activities will be at standstill without a good road network and traffic coordination facilities across Nigeria and the city of Calabar in particular. There exist a mesh of road networks to ease the movement of commuters and pedestrians

Also, the coming on board of the present civilian government in CrossRiversState has witnessed significant infrastructural development in the transport sector with the mounting of traffic lights across the “ParadiseCity” of Calabar.

According to the Webster dictionary, “traffic is the passage to, and fro of people, especially of vehicles on a road or street, or ships, aircrafts etc on their routes”. In this research, we shall be concerned with traffic in the city of Calabar. Precisely it’s control via the traffic light system and its automation with computers

The automation of traffic light is achieved via the used of embedded system. This embedded system is an electronic device build into the traffic light components to automatically regulate the movement of vehicles and persons at road junction where they are mounted. In Calabar, the traffic light contains three lights-a red that means “stop”, amber that means “get ready” and green that means “go”.

Usually, the red light contains some orange in its live and green light contains some blue to provide some support for people with “red-green” color blindness.

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The absence of traffic light at any junction in Calabar often leads to congestion on that route. Also, such uncontrolled movement lead to deadlock resulting in head on collisions.

Furthermore,  in the city of Calabar inspire of the traffic lights mounted, even at Murtala Mohammed highway near the state stadium, you still find longs queues held in suspense because of timing duration that is used for phase changes.

The ultimate bottle-neck to the free flow of traffic in Calabar is the poor road network because no fly-over to easily the movements of some vehicles. Hence, the movements in Calabar especially at park hours (morning and evening) require a lot of patience because motorists and even pedestrians sometimes disobey, the traffic light signals which often lead to accident on the road, thereby causing congestion when the vehicles involved are not removed.

TO SOLVE THE PROBLEMS THE RESEARCHER

i)       Will outline possible ways of reducing congestion at the junction.

ii)      State the actions to be taken if a motorist eventually disobeys the traffic signals.

iii)     Develop an algorithm/program to determine the most congested route, so that the computerized traffic light system will give move preference to such routes and allow more vehicles to cross over.

iv)     Suggest proactive measures for monitoring the traffic situation in Calabar to ensure safety and free flow of traffic.

1.3     OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The traffic light is an embedded control system. This research therefore seeks to:

i)       Study the relationship between computer and traffic light control system.

ii)      Study the operation of an embedded system.

iii)     Examine the historical development of traffic lights and how it has affected road traffic.

iv)     Examine the relevant uses of traffic light and its specific application for road traffic control and monitoring.

v)      Proffer solutions to the traffic nightmare in the city of Calabar metropolis.

1.4     SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

To exhibit the characteristics of traffic control in the context of the computer environment, the system will be designed to emulate the configuration and layout of the traffic light system at Murtala Mohammed highway near the state stadium junction in Calabar.

The system implementation and programming shall be done with visual basic on the Microsoft (desktop) windows (32-bit) platform.

Furthermore, the working of the system will demonstrate the flow of traffic and its automated control by the traffic light system at the above mentioned junction.

1.5     DEFINITON OF TERMS

       TRAFFIC:The end fro movement of vehicles and people on a road or street, ship, aircraft etc on their route.

       TRAFFIC LIGHT:A system of colored lights, usually automatically controlled at road crossings or paints of concentration to regulate traffic.

       EMBEDDED SYSTEM:A system firmly fixed into another surrounding system.

       AUTOMATIC CONTROL:Control achieved by electronic device that automatically regulate processes.

       DEADLOCK:The state existing when neither two opposing vehicles will give ways or progress can be made.

       PEDESTRIAN:Person moving about on foot rather than traveling in a vehicle.

       COMMUTER:Person who travels some distance ones homes and place of work on a regular basis.

       ROUTE:A way taken in getting from a starting point to destination.

       ROAD NETWORK:A system of roads that cross or connect with each other.

       COLOR-BLINDNESS:Unable to tell the difference between certain colors.

       LAMP:A devices that uses electricity, oil or gas to produce light.

       LAM POST:A tall post in the street with a lamp at the top.

       COMPUTERIZED:To provide a computer or computers to do the work of something or to store information on a computer. 

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