Ubiquitous traffic management with fuzzy logic — Case study of Maseru, Lesotho

Abstract

Maseru is the capital city of Lesotho and is a relatively small city with roughly 67 vehicles registered each day. Traffic lights are used with the intension of effectively managing vehicular traffic at junctions. These traffic lights follow a predetermined sequence usually based on historic data. As a result of this design, they inherently fail to efficaciously manage traffic flow when it is abnormal. Vehicles on one side have to wait even though there are no cars on other sides of the road. The consequences of this include increased congestion and atmospheric air pollution. Technological advancements have resulted in the now widely researched Internet of Things paradigm with one of its applications being vehicular traffic management. The focus of this paper is the design of a prototype reactive system based on Internet of Things whose functionality includes traffic lights that are capable of reacting to prevailing conditions. The system makes use of Radio Frequency IDentifier technology and mobile tools to ubiquitously collect traffic data and disseminate value added traffic information.