Internet of Smart-Cameras for Traffic Lights Optimization in Smart Cities

Smart and decentralized control systems have recently been proposed to handle the growing traffic congestion in urban cities. Proposed smart traffic light solutions based on Wireless Sensor Network and Vehicular Ad-hoc NETwork are either unreliable and inflexible or complex and costly. Furthermore, the handling of special vehicles such as emergency is still not viable, especially during busy hours. Inspired by the emergence of distributed smart cameras, we present a novel approach to traffic control at intersections. Our approach uses smart cameras at intersections along with image understanding for real-time traffic monitoring and assessment. Besides understanding the traffic flow, the cameras can detect and track special vehicles and help prioritize emergency cases. Traffic violations can be identified as well and traffic statistics collected. In this paper, we introduce a flexible, adaptive and distributed control algorithm that uses the information provided by distributed smart cameras to efficiently control traffic signals. Experimental results show that our collision-free approach outperforms the state-of-the-art of the average user's waiting time in the queue and improves the routing of emergency vehicles in a cross congestion area.