This document summarizes a journal article about a traffic light control system using radio frequency (RF) for emergency vehicles. The system uses an RF transmitter in emergency vehicles that sends a signal to an RF receiver at an intersection. When the receiver gets the emergency signal, it overrides the normal traffic light sequence and changes the light for the emergency vehicle to green for a set time. This allows emergency vehicles to pass through intersections more quickly. The system was tested up to a range of 20 meters outdoors and 30 meters indoors using a 434MHz RF module and PIC microcontroller. The system aims to help reduce accidents by giving emergency vehicles priority at traffic lights.

1. International Journal of Research in Advent Technology, Vol.2, No.8, June 2014
E-ISSN: 2321-9637
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Traffic Light Control System using 434 MHz
Radio Frequency
M. H. A. Ilmudin1, N. M. Z. Hashim2, A. S. Ja’afar3, A. Salleh4, A. Jaafar5, M. F. M. Sam6
Centre for Telecommunication Research and Innovation (CeTRI), Faculty of Electronic and Computer
Engineering1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Faculty of Technology Management & Entrepreneurship 6, University Teknikal Malaysia
Melaka (UTeM), Hang Tuah Jaya 76100, Durian Tunggal, Melaka, Malaysia 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Email: hakim.mohd90@gmailcom 1, nikzarifie@utem.edu.my2, shukur@utem.edu.my3,
azahari@utem.edu.my4,anuarjaafar@utem.edu.my5, mohd.fazli@utem.edu.my6
Abstract- Traffic congestion problem is the phenomena which contributed a huge obstacle to the transportation
system. This will cause many problems mainly when there are emergency cases at traffic light intersections
which are always busy and jammed with many vehicles. This situation becomes more crucial when special
routing is not provided for the emergency vehicles such as ambulance, patrol car and fire truck when red sign
light. To overcome this situation, a traffic light controller system for emergency vehicle using 434 MHz Radio
and Programmable Integrated Circuit (PIC) is designed to help traffic control and also other road users when
emergency situation occurs. The system works when an emergency vehicle approaching the traffic light
intersections, the emergency vehicle will send a signal via dedicated device to the receiver at traffic light. The
receiver or controller receives emergency signals; it changes the traffic red light to green light in a specific
duration of time. This system will help to reduce accidents which happen at the traffic light intersections
because of other vehicle had to huddle for given route to emergency vehicle. The traffic light control system for
emergency vehicle using radio frequency (RF) assisted the emergency vehicle to cross at the intersection of
traffic light. In the future, the development of this system can be improved by analyzing the stability of Radio
Frequency system e.g. frequency range and can be developed for real traffic light system.
Index Terms- PIC 16F877A, Radio Frequency (RF), Sequence Control, Traffic Light
1. INTRODUCTION
Traffic light system is built to avoid road
accidents that occur at major intersections. The
systems of traffic lights at every intersection to some
extent interfere with emergency vehicles to move
smoothly into the emergency area (Azwan et al.
2008). To overcome this situation, RF signal is used
to control traffic light system when emergency
vehicle approaching the traffic light. The development
of the proposed traffic light control system using RF
signal consist transmitter and receiver. In addition RF
signal is proposed due to fact that RF signal can cover
large area and more reliable. Besides that, transmitter
will send data or message to trigger the emergency
mode for traffic light system, the receiver will capture
those signal and send it to Programmable Integrated
Circuit (PIC) (Vlad et al. 2008; Woodbridge et al.
2010; Zhang and Yan 2009). PIC16F877A will trigger
the emergency mode sequence when it received RF
signal from the emergency vehicle and change back to
normal mode sequence.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Intelligent traffic light to recognize vehicles
in emergencies and give them priority and let them
pass the signals as early as possible by using Wireless
Sensor Network (WSN) (Talluri and Kumar M 2013).
The system was installed in vehicles of any
government higher officials, ambulances or any others
or whom time is critical. Every time a vehicle with
emergency enters a road blocked with many other
vehicles on the road with the RFID card is taken out,
the signal lights in that lane are given to the green
signal. They are maintained green signal till it reaches
the required opposite lane.
An intelligent ambulance and traffic control
shown the unique feature which is very useful to
ambulance drivers to take an alternate route in case of
congestion (Kale and Dhok 2013). The various
performance evaluation criteria are average waiting
time, average distance traveled by vehicles, switching
frequency of green light at a junction, efficient
emergency mode operation and satisfactory operation
of SMS using GSM Mobile (Chavan, Deshpande, and
Rana 2009).
The traffic light system using Wireless
Sensor Network (WSN) was dynamically adaptive to
traffic conditions on both single and multiple
intersections (Shruthi and Vinodha 2012). An
intelligent traffic light controller system with a new
method of vehicle detection and dynamic traffic
signal time manipulation is used in the project. The
project uses fuzzy logic to define the direction of
emergency vehicles to avoid collisions.
Intelligent Traffic Lights Based on RFID
with this system considered the priority of different
type of vehicles and also considers the density of
traffic on the roads by installing RF reader on the road
intersections. Radio frequency identification is a

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technique that uses the radio waves to identify the
object uniquely (Singh, Kumar, and Kaur 2012).
Under the proposed work, each intersection contains 8
RFID readers. The road was divided into two lanes.
Each lane has its RFID reader to track the vehicles
passing through it. Each intersection point has its own
database to store the information regarding the
vehicles that passed from it with timestamp and traffic
light. Every vehicle has a RFID enabled device that
stores a vehicle identification number (VIN).
Traffic Light Priority Control for Emergency
Vehicle Using RFID with standard traffic control
systems provided an efficient time management
scheme, in which a dynamic time schedule is worked
out in real time for the passage of each traffic column
(Sharma 2013). An algorithm for the control of the
traffic sequence that can change dynamically the
priority and easy to implement is written to facilitate
the efficient traffic control at certain junction.
As the target of the proposed system to be
achieved, the system is to be analyzed in the range of
RF frequency and to be designed in an emergency
mode for traffic light when emergency vehicle
approaching and to prevent from emergency vehicle
crash.
3. MATERAIAL AND METHOD
3.1. System Flow Chart
3.1.1. Case study
Research a journal about traffic light control system
for traffic light control system using Radio Frequency
(Hashim and Arifin 2013; Hashim and Mohamed
2013; Hashim, Mohamad, et al. 2013).
3.1.2. Component consideration
The component must be chosen properly before it will
proceed to design process. If the component is not
compatible due to disadvantages, then it will go back
to the consideration component process again
(Hashim, Halim, et al. 2013).
3.1.3. Design circuit
The circuit of this system is designed and constructed
roughly using the entire chosen component during this
phase. The components are assembled on a
breadboard to ensure that the circuit work properly.
3.1.4. Simulate design
After done all drawing, assemble and analysis
process, the complete design can be seen using a
Proteus software. The completed design must be
rechecked so that the defect in the design can be
reconsidered. If there is a defect, it must return back
to configuration design process.
3.2. System Block Diagram
The block diagram of this system is shown in
Fig. 1 and Fig. 2. The block diagram is divided into
several parts which are RF transmitter, receiver and
embedded system PIC microcontroller.
Fig.1. Transmitter Module
Fig. 2. Receiver Module
3.2.1. Encoder
Encoder is a device that encode the information in
particular way such as compressing, converting or
secure it in a different format.
3.2.2. Decoder
Decoder is a devide that decode the information from
encoder, decoder will remove the information from
previously encode state and return to its original
format.
3.2.3. RF Transmitter and Receiver Module
A radio frequency transmitter and receiver module
will be used in the circuit to implement wireless
communication for this system.
3.2.4. Embedded Microcontroller
PIC 16F877A, a 40 pins PIC will be used to operate
the end device system since it has many port and
mostly important is support UART features (Hashim
and Hamdan 2013; Hashim, Ali, Salleh, et al. 2013;
Hashim, Halim, et al. 2013; Hashim, Husin, et al.
2013; Hashim, Ibrahim, Saad, et al. 2013; Hashim,
Ibrahim, Zakaria, et al. 2013; Hashim, Jaafar, Zakaria,
et al. 2013).
4. RESULTS/FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This system consists of two part, the first part is
Radio Frequency (RF) Transmitter circuit. The
function of Radio Frequency (RF) Transmitter circuit
is to overide the system of traffic light. The second
part is Radio Frequency (RF) Receiver circuit. The

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function of Radio Frequency (RF) receiver is receive
the data from transmitter and change the sequence of
traffic light system according to transmitter.
4.1. Radio Frequency (RF) Transmitter circuit
The transmitter consist of a Radio Frequency
module, PIC 16F877A, six push button and two LED
indicator. The connection of circuit was shown in Fig.
3.
Fig. 3. RF transmitter circuit
4.2. Radio Frequency (RF) Receiver
The receiver consist of Radio Frequency
module, PIC 16F877A, two push buttons and two
LED indicators.The sequence of the traffic lights is
generated by the PIC. A LED is connected to PIC
16F87a, PIC will decode the data from transmitter.
When the data was received from transmitter, PIC
will decode the data that which button is transmitted
from transmitter. The connection of the circuit was
shown in Fig. 4.
Fig. 4. RF receiver and PIC
4.3. Push Button Switch
A set of four push Button switches is used in
the RF transmitter circuit. Each switch labeled with
number 1, 2, 3 and 4 to indicate which traffic light at
the intersection. These switch need to be push (switch
on) in order to trigger the emergency sequence mode
of the traffic light intersection (Van Gulik and Vlacic
2002). The other switch is reset button and on/off
button.
Fig. 5. A set of six push button switch
4.4. The Normal Sequence
The sequence of traffic lights started as green light of
traffic light 1 and red light for others traffic light. The
duration for each traffic light is 30 seconds only
unless the Radio Frequency (RF) receiver received
any signal from transmitter, it will trigger the
emergency mode for traffic light.
Table 1. Truth table for first 10 second of the
sequence
Traffic
Light
Red Yellow Green
1 0 0 1
2 1 0 0
3 1 0 0
4 1 0 0

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Fig. 6. The green light of traffic light 1 is on for 10
seconds
Then, the green light of traffic light 1 is off
and the next sequence for traffic light 2 will change to
green light.
Table 2. Truth table when the yellow light of traffic
light 1 is on
Traffic
Light
Red Yellow Green
1 1 0 0
2 0 0 1
3 1 0 0
4 1 0 0
Fig. 7. The yellow light of traffic light 1 is on for 10
seconds
Next, the sequence turned on the green light of
traffic light 3 and the red light of other traffic light for
duration of 30 seconds. The same result happened to
the traffic light 4 and traffic light 1 after an interval of
the yellow light of each traffic light is on for 2
seconds. The microcontroller will keep repeating this
sequence of the traffic light unless the emergency
sequence is triggered.
4.5. The Emergency Mode sequence
The emergency mode is triggered when the
RF receiver received the transmitted signal from the
RF transmitter to override the normal sequence of the
traffic light. For example, an ambulance arrives at the
traffic light 4 and the green light of the traffic light 1
is on.
Fig. 8. The green light of traffic light 1 is on
When the push-on button no.4 is turned on, the
RF receiver received the transmitted signal and
changed the sequence to the emergency sequence
mode. The emergency sequence mode started when
the yellow of traffic light 1 is on for 2 seconds. Then
the green of traffic light 4 is on.
Fig. 9. The green light of traffic light 4 is on for 10
second
The emergency sequence mode is ended when the
reset button being push, then the sequence of the
traffic light is back to the normal sequence which the
green light of traffic light 1 is turned back on for the
remaining time before the emergency sequence mode
is triggered.

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Fig. 10. The sequence of the traffic light is back to
normal
4.6. The range of Radio Frequency (RF)
transmit data can receive
The range of transmitter has been analyzed in
outdoor and indoor places as to study the
effectiveness of using RF in our study.
Table 3. Outdoor Range Measurement
Range Data transmit
5 m Yes
10 m Yes
15 m Yes
20 m Yes
25 m No
30 m No
35 m No
40 m No
From the Table 3 the transmit data only can
receive until the range of 20 m, the range that beyond
than 20 m the receiver cannot receive data from
transmitter.
Table 4. Indoor Range Measurement
Range Data transmit
5 m Yes
10 m Yes
15 m Yes
20 m Yes
25 m Yes
30 m Yes
35 m No
40 m No
From the Table 4 the transmit data only can
receive until the range of 30 m and the range beyond
than that the receiver will not receive the data from
transmitter. From the observation of the result, regular
radio frequency modular is quite disturbed at outdoor
places different from indoor places.
5. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, traffic light control system for
emergency vehicle using radio frequency (RF)
facilitate emergency vehicle to cross at the
intersection of traffic light. This system implementing
radio frequency (RF) as the medium for emergency
vehicle communicate with traffic light system. This
system can solve the problem for emergency vehicle
when approaching traffic light with ease. In the future
this prototype can be improved by upgrading the
range of radio frequency can transmitted and applied
this system to real traffic light system.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Centre for Telecommunication
Research and Innovation (CeTRI) and Universiti
Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM) through
PJP/2013/FKEKK (47B)/S01274 for their kind and
help for supporting financially and supplying the
electronic components and giving their laboratory
facility to complete this study.
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