1.1 Introduction
Monitoring road traffic particularly vehicle speeds is an utmost priority in today’s society as the number of vehicles on the roadways is growing and the traffic is becoming very congested. On an average, one person dies by vehicle crash in every minute. Nearly 10 million people are injured each year by vehicle accidents. The hospital bill, damaged property and other costs are adding up to 1%-3% of the world gross domestic product. Over speed of a vehicle is one of the most important reasons for increasing traffic accidents. Recent statistics shows that 25.1% accidents are caused by vehicular over speed.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
Nowadays people are driving very fast, accidents are occurring frequently, we lost our valuable life by making small mistake while driving (school zone, hills area, and highways). So in order to avoid such kind of accidents and to alert the drivers and to control their vehicle speed in such kind of places the highway department have placed the signboards. But sometimes it may not be possible to view that kind of signboards and there are chances for accident or driver don’t slow the speed of their vehicles even after seeing the sign boards. Accidents are occurring frequently in highly traffic areas .Drivers drive vigorously without caring the traffic. Intimation of driver about speed and accident prone zone is necessary. It can be done by using automatic technology with the help of embedded system and sensors.
Many sensors these days are available in the market for the obstacle detection. Some of the sensors are PIR sensor, Ultrasonic sensor, IR sensor, photoelectric sensor etc. These have advantages and disadvantages also. Monitoring road traffic particularly vehicle speeds is an utmost priority in today’s society as the number of vehicles on the roadways is growing and the traffic is becoming very congested. On an average, one person dies by vehicle crash in every minute.
As the days of manned driving are getting extremely numbered, so are those of traffic jams, bad, dangerous and rough drivers and more importantly, accidents. Safety is a necessary part of man’s life. Due to the accident cases reported daily on the major roads in all parts of the developed and developing countries, more attention is needed for research in the designing an efficient car driving aiding system. It is expected that if such a device is designed and incorporated into our cars as a road safety device, it will reduce the incidence of accidents on our roads and various premises, with subsequent reduction in loss of life and property. However, a major area of concern of an engineer should be safety, as it concerns the use of his/her inventions and the accompanying dangers due to human limitations. When it comes to the use of a motor vehicle, accidents that have occurred over the years tell us that something needs to be done about them from an engineering point of view.
In the recent times, street lighting has become extremely important whether it is urban or rural area. Now people of all the areas know that street lights are alternative for the nighttime in order to keep the road user safe. Because of this concept, there is rapid increase in streets as well as street light systems. The motion control light system and vehicle base speed control can be defined as to reduce man power, reduce electric bill and use the help of intelligent systems. Through this power saving can be achieved to some extent, as ‘some’ is better than ‘nothing’. Public tend to prefer automatic systems in any field compared to manual systems in order for efficiency and better living. There are numerous number of factors to be considered in order to design good vehicle motion base auto street light and speed control system with main objectives as public safety, cost efficient and energy efficient. If street light systems and speed control systems are designed in this particular way then it will be really very helpful the people living around the streets and they can move around safely with proper light guiding them. As lights used for street lights are classified into many types as incandescent light, mercury vapor light, metal halide light, high pressure sodium light, low pressure sodium light, fluorescent light, induction light, compact fluorescent light and LED light.
Therefore, in Nigeria where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to construct of Vehicle Detection through Street Light.
1.3 Statement of Problems
Investigation revealed that if the system is in such a way that it has an IR sensor and detects the movement of the road user and then the light gets ON and remains in OFF position when there are no road users present. This becomes difficult if the road user comes in very high speed, PIR fails to detect and this becomes really tough when it does not contribute to ON the light when required. So an algorithm here which includes Lora wireless module with the WSN (wireless sensor network) for detecting the road user in order to ON the light earlier as well as accurately for the road user. Here the main task is to ON the light through wireless communication between two modules.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study
The aim of the study is to design and Construct of Vehicle Detection through Street Light. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:
- To construct a system that will inform the driver about the exceeding speed of vehicle and control it automatically if driver doesn’t respond.
- To design a system that will control the speed of vehicles in Accident prone areas.
- To design a vehicle detection system that will save power is very important, instead of using the power in unnecessary times it should be switched off.
- To save energy by detecting the vehicle movement on highways and switching on the block of street light ahead of it and simultaneously switching off the trailing lights.
1.5 Significance of Study
The Street light Automation system helps in decreasing the energy consumption, reduces maintenance costs and helps to reduce crime actions and accidents up to certain limit. This study will also be of immense benefit to Electrical Engineering students and other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.6 Scope of Study
The scope of the research is focused on design and construction of Vehicle Detection through Street Light.
1.7 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).
