Vehicle Traffic Volume Counting by Using Arduino Uno

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Vehicle Traffic Volume Counting by Using Arduino Uno

Traffic engineering uses engineering methods and techniques to achieve the safe and time efficient movement of people and goods on roadways. The safe and time efficient movement of the people and goods is dependent on Traffic flow, which is directly connected to the traffic characteristics. The three main parameters of a traffic flow are volume, speed and density. In the absence of effective planning and traffic management of the city, the current road infrastructure cannot cater the future needs of the city. Pedestrian and vehicle volumes have increased significantly in the last decade due to the change of the economics of the middle-class families. By considering this we developed a project which identifies the vehicle motion, classifies the vehicles, counts it and stores in SD card. Two ultrasonic sensors are used to determine the width of vehicles. The sensors are connected to Arduino micro controller followed by the memory read write module. When vehicles pass near to the sensors, the two sensors calculate the width of vehicles. Based on the width the vehicle is classified. For example, car width ranges from 1-1.4m if the calculated width comes in 1 to 1.4m range then the vehicle is classified to car and car count is done. In SD card separate txt file is created for a type of vehicle and the counting number is displayed. In display will show something like this “Type of vehicles: car = 1 num”. The model comes around below 2000 INR (USD 60), portable, efficient, accuracy is more than manual counting.

Why Counting of Vehicle Traffic Volume is Necessary?

This project deals with Transportation engineering which is one of the major streams of civil engineering. The project is carried out to make counting work in the transportation field easier and effective than traditional method. This is achieved by linking the work with Internet of things. The objectives of the project are to solve the common problems which can occur in the counting of vehicles and it is cheaper than the other methods. The traffic volume count is very essential for the widening and design of roads. In India traffic volume counts are taken by toll gates, giving contract to companies etc. This type of methods is uneconomical. To solve these problems project embedded with ultrasonic sensors, memory card slot, LCD and Arduino Uno board which are functions to detect the motion of vehicles, classifies the vehicle, and according to classification it counts the vehicles. All these data are stored in a SD card and storage is carried up to 8GB. The file can be saved as excel sheet or a text file etc. In the present world due to rising of the population at a rapid rate the vehicles in the roads are more so the traffic data collected changes time to time. So, it is very difficult to depend on previous year traffic data. For the continuous track of data it is very uneconomical. By taking this in mind the project topic which was selected to work on this.

Components Required for Vehicle Traffic Volume Counter

• Arduino Uno Micro Controller
• HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Sensors
• SD Card Module
• SD card (less than 8gb)
• Jump wires

Working Procedure

First, we must set the model for the vehicle count as well as width calculation. For that we have to fix the two ultrasonic sensors in the road. The ultrasonic sensors must not be placed in same line but that must be placed oppositely. The distance between the two ultrasonic sensors must be known. The connections are done to SD card module and Arduino Uno. After all the setup, the vehicle must be allowed to pass from the model. When vehicle is passed through the two sensors the distance from vehicle to the sensor is calculated. Consider d1 is the distance from vehicle to ultrasonic sensor1 and d2 is the distance from vehicle to the ultrasonic sensor2, d is the distance from 2 ultrasonic sensors. So the width is given by W= d-(d1+d2) Based on the width the vehicles are classified, Once the vehicle is classified the counting of vehicle is done and it is saved in SD card. For the demonstration video, please visit: Vehicle Traffic Volume Counter Using Arduino Uno

Fig: Arduino Uno micro controller

Fig: Ultrasonic Sensors

Fig: Project Setup

Fig: Vehicle Traffic Volume Counter

Advantages

• High accuracy
• High storage
• No maintenance
• No disturbance to traffic
• No tension of losing data

Disadvantages

• Barricades Required

This project and article is prepared and submitted by Sampath. You can watch the complete video of this project and subscribe to his channel. Read More: Classification of Roads and Their Details Intelligent Transportation System What are the Types of Cranes Used in Construction?