International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies (iJIM) – eISSN: 1865-7923 – Vol. 14, No. 7, 2020


Paper—Design and Implementation of a Smart Traffic Light Management System Controlled… 

Design and Implementation of a Smart Traffic Light 

Management System Controlled Wirelessly by Arduino 

https://doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v14i07.12823 

Abdul Hadi M. Alaidi 

Wasit University, Wasit, Iraq 

Ibtisam A. Aljazaery 

Babylon University, Babil, Iraq 

Haider Th. Salim AlRikabi () 

Wasit University, Wasit, Iraq 
hdhiyab@uowasit.edu.iq 

Ibrahim Nasir Mahmood 

Basra University for Oil and Gas, Basra, Iraq 

Faisal Theyab Abed 

Wasit University, Wasit, Iraq 

Abstract—In Iraq, the number of people who own vehicles has grown up sig-

nificantly. However, this increment in vehicles number doesn’t accomplished by 

a study of roads and intersections expansion. As a result, traffic jams became a 

big problem that led to long waiting time at each intersection, increased car acci-

dents, pollution, and economic problems. To solve this problem a Smart Traffic 

Light System (STLS) has been implemented using Arduino, camera, IR sensor to 

overcome traffic jams problems in Kut city – Iraq. 

Keywords—Significantly, increased car accidents, pollution, economic prob-

lems, STLS, IR sensor 

1 Introduction 

Nowadays and due to the significant amount of time spent waiting at each street 

intersection in Iraq, the need for a smart traffic light system has been raised. The current 

traffic light system in Iraq still implemented using the old traditional approach which 

is a timer-based system, and sometimes the traffic is controlled manually through hu-

man intervention (Traffic Police Officers direct the traffic). In addition, the increased 

number of vehicles that imported to Iraq especially after 2003 led to huge traffic jams 

as the existing road grid never got upgraded or enhanced to handle the increased number 

of vehicles passing through Iraq roads  [1-4]. All of this caused the issue of uncontrolled 

congested street intersections which in return resulted in very high waiting time at street 

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https://doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v14i07.12823
mailto:hdhiyab@uowasit.edu.iq


Paper—Design and Implementation of a Smart Traffic Light Management System Controlled… 

intersections as well as increased number of motor vehicles accidents. So, in order to 

decrease the waiting time at each intersection and to avoid any accidents, we thought 

about controlling the traffic through a smart traffic light system[5-9]. It is by far known 

that there are different approaches and methodologies used to implement smart traffic 

light systems around the world, and each approach resolves specific issue or matter. 

There are traffic systems that are implemented based on the observation of objects using 

digital cameras, others based on the observing of a specific weight threshold on each 

street side, or systems based on fuzzy logic[10-16]. Our system implementation is de-

signed based on an idea sensing the current number of vehicles at each side of an inter-

section and allocate the green light when a specific vehicles count is reached. 

2 System Implementation (Methodology) 

Using a IR sensor[17-19], our smart traffic light system will be implemented by in-

stalling magnetometer sensor at 30-meter distance from the intersection at each side. 

The 30-meter distance will be used to calculate the number of cars once it reaches to 

the specified number threshold. Considering that each street will handle 3 cars width-

wise therefore the 30-meter distance will allow up to 30 cars approximately to be 

stacked in each section in order for the Green Light to be triggered. Each sensor is 

connected to microcontroller which control the various signals received from the sen-

sors and to allocate the green light according to the received feedbacks from the in-

stalled sensors[20-22]. Our smart traffic light control system process is applied by fol-

lowing below pattern: 

1. The process starts by clearing all the values of the queue and the sensor readings for 

each side of the intersection (S1, S2, S3, S4). And the Red Light is set ON for all the 

sides (S1, S2, S3, S4) initially. 

2. Once a signal is received from any of the sensors indicating that the specified thresh-

old at one of the sides is reached (in this case approx. 30 cars stacked in that side of 

the intersection). Then the Green Light will be triggered and allocated for that side 

to allow the cars on that side to pass through. 

3. Once another signal is received from another sensor, then a Red light will be assigned 

to the current open side, and the Green light will be allocated to the new 30 cars 

stacked side. 

4. In case, two or more signals indicating that 30 cars are already stacked on specific 

side, then the side ID will be stored in a queue and the Green light will be assigned 

to each side according to the queue priority scheme which is First In First Out (FIFO) 

with 3 minutes passing time assigned to each side to allow the stacked cars to pass 

through. 

5. The OV7670/OV7171 fig 1 is a camera that has been used in this work to get vehicle 

image, CAMERACHIPTM, which has low voltage CMOS image sensor and pro-

vides full functionality of single-chip VGA camera and image processor. The role of 

the camera is to monitor the overall functionality of the system and to record any 

accidents / violations in order to apply further enhancement or modification to the 

system as needed. 

iJIM ‒ Vol. 14, No. 7, 2020 33



Paper—Design and Implementation of a Smart Traffic Light Management System Controlled… 

 

Fig. 1. OV7670/OV7171 Camera 

 

Fig. 2. Traffic intersection with four direction and single line. 

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Paper—Design and Implementation of a Smart Traffic Light Management System Controlled… 

 

Fig. 3. Simulation of traffic intersection with four direction and single line 

 

Fig. 4. The connection of Arduino to the camera 

iJIM ‒ Vol. 14, No. 7, 2020 35



Paper—Design and Implementation of a Smart Traffic Light Management System Controlled… 

Table 1.  The Abbreviations meaning of connection 

 

 

Fig. 5. A Brief flowchart of proposed STLMS. 

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Paper—Design and Implementation of a Smart Traffic Light Management System Controlled… 

 

Fig. 6. The Final Arduino Diagram. 

Table 2.  The approximate number of cars at AlKafaat intersection at Kut City during the day. 

Time T1 T2 T3 T4 Average Waiting Time 

Morning 7:30-8:30 600 200 100 150 13 min 

Afternoon 2:00-3:00 100 150 500 100 14 min 

Evening 8:00-9:30 610 300 200 450 15 min 

Evening 10:00-11:30 400 550 350 200 11 min 

3 Conclusion 

In conclusion, we successfully designed and implemented a smart traffic manage-

ment system using Arduino to solve the jam traffic in Al Kafaat intersection at Kut City, 

Iraq. The proposed method investigates and manage daily traffic at four-line intersec-

tion using Arduino, Magnetometer sensor, and camera. Moreover, the proposed system 

is also achieved synchronization at four-line intersection and implement balance be-

tween number of cars at each line and green light. The average waiting time has en-

hanced for all the intersections after applying the proposed system and was reduced to 

be averaged around 5 – 6 minutes waiting time. 

4 Acknowledgement 

This work was supported by Wasit University in order to reduce traffic congestion 

in Wasit Governorate. Special thanks for the faculty of electrical engineering depart-

ment for supporting me in this paper. Many thanks for To the Directorate of Traffic 

Wasit for knowing the traffic congestion areas and solve it in this paper. 

iJIM ‒ Vol. 14, No. 7, 2020 37



Paper—Design and Implementation of a Smart Traffic Light Management System Controlled… 

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6 Authors 

Abdul Hadi Alaidi is a lecturer in the Department of Electrical Engineering and 

Computer science at the Wasit University where he has been a faculty member since 

2014. He is a Chair Assistant in the Electrical department. He works as Manager of 

Computer Information Center in Wasit University before he moved to work as IT Man-

ager at College of Engineering. He developing a Student Record Information program 

with cooperation with Virginia Tech and sponsor by IREX. Abdul Hadi completed his 

M.S. at Bridgeport University. His thesis explored to introduce a new hybrid method to 

solve mTSP His research interests lie in the area of algorithm, ranging from theory to 

design to implementation. He published many papers in algorithms and IoT field. 

University of Wasit Iraq, Wasit province, Alkut city – Hay ALRabee. alaidi@ 

uowasit.edu.iq. The number of articles in national databases – 4, The number of articles 

in international databases – 2. 

Ibtisam A. Aljazaery Lecturer Department of Electrical Engineering, College of 

Engineering, University of Babylon. Babylon, Iraq. Email: ibtisamalasady@gmail.com 

The number of articles in national databases – 6, The number of articles in international 

databases – 5 

Haider Th. Salim ALRikabi, He is presently one of the faculty college of engineer-

ing, electrical engineering department, Wasit University in Al Kut, Wasit, Iraq. He re-

ceived his B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering in 2006 from the Al Mustansiriya 

University in Baghdad, Iraq. his M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering focusing on 

Communications Systems from California state university/Fullerton, USA in 2014. His 

current research interests include Communications systems with mobile generation, 

Control systems, intelligent technologies, smart cities, and Internet of Things (IoT). 

iJIM ‒ Vol. 14, No. 7, 2020 39

https://doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v14i01.11538
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2009.09.030
https://doi.org/10.1109/jsen.2016.2557345
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ins.2016.08.045
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ins.2016.08.045
https://doi.org/10.1109/icgccee.2014.6922284
https://doi.org/10.1109/icgccee.2014.6922284
mailto:alaidi@uowasit.edu.iq
mailto:alaidi@uowasit.edu.iq
ibtisamalasady@gmail.com


Paper—Design and Implementation of a Smart Traffic Light Management System Controlled… 

Al Kut city – Hay ALRabee, Wasit, Iraq, Contact: - +9647732212637, E-mail:- 

hdhiyab@uowasit.edu.iq, The number of articles in national databases – 10, The num-

ber of articles in international databases – 10 

Ibrahim Nasir Mahmood, Lecturer, Department of Chemical and Oil Refinery En-

gineering, Basra University for Oil and Gas, Master of Computer Science, Iraq, Basra 

Province, Basra City – Hay AlAsmaee,.Contact tel.:+964 771-785-5037, Email: ibra-

him.mahmood@buog.edu.iq, The number of articles in national databases – 0, The 

number of articles in international databases – 1 

Faisal Theyab Abed,. is presently one of the faculty college of engineering, electri-

cal engineering department, Wasit University in Al Kut, Wasit, Iraq. He received his 

B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering in 2006 from the Al Mustansiriya University in 

Baghdad, Iraq. his M.Sc. degree in power engineering Engineering focusing on power 

station Systems from Russia, His current research interests include power, smart grid, 

smart machine. Assistant lecture, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of 

Wasit, Iraq ,Wasit province ,alkut city – Hay ALRabee. Contact: - +9647714374950 

E-mail: - engfath84@gmail.com, The number of articles in national databases - 2The 

number of articles in international databases - 2 

Article submitted 2019-12-18. Resubmitted 2020-02-01. Final acceptance 2020-02-03. Final version pub-
lished as submitted by the authors. 

40 http://www.i-jim.org

mailto:hdhiyab@uowasit.edu.iq
mailto:ibrahim.mahmood@buog.edu.iq
mailto:ibrahim.mahmood@buog.edu.iq
mailto:engfath84@gmail.com