Next-Generation Traffic Control: Adaptive Timer and Emergency Vehicle Priority in Intelligent Traffic Management

Traffic has always been a troubling issue in our society. The increased number of automobiles on roads has sub-stantially increased traffic congestion polluting the environment and causing stress and anxiety to passengers in the traffic clog. The existing system of fixed traffic control system even though widely used, lacks adaptability and operates on predefined signal timers. The lack of adaptability can lead to inefficient traffic flow, especially during high traffic congestion. To address this issue, we propose a more adaptive and intelligent system that leverages adaptive timer control and prioritizes emergency vehicles like, ambulance. The adaptive timer control system considers the count of vehicles at the previous junction as well as the count of vehicles currently arriving at the intersection to update the signal timers. Additionally, to prevent delays in emergency response times and to provide a better impact on public safety and health outcomes we have provided an added feature to prioritize emergency vehicles and release the traffic upon its arrival at the respective signal. The detection of the emergency vehicle is to be carried out using the YOLO v8(You Look Only Once) algorithm along with siren recognition using a classifier model. The proposed system offers a significant improvement over the existing traffic control infrastructures and has the potential for aiding resilient and smooth transportation.