STLS: Smart Traffic Lights System for Emergency Response Vehicles

Emergency response vehicles, such as ambulances and fire-trucks, cannot afford to waste time while waiting on traffic lights. These vehicles need a system that would allow them to safely cross the traffic lights without any delay. We propose a smart traffic lights system (STLS) that uses an Android app, MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) protocol, Google maps, micro-controlled traffic lights and the Internet for connecting them together. The Android app allows a user to select the destination, Google maps find the shortest path to the destination and position of all traffic signals on the path, the mobile app sends the arrival time for each traffic signal controllers. Eventually, when the vehicle will arrive at the traffic lights, it will find them opened without any conflict with the other signals. A laboratory prototype is made using an Arduino microcontroller to control the traffic lights represented by LEDs on a breadboard, while a fully functional prototype with actual traffic lights is also developed and tested with 100% correct results.