Abstract:
Maseru is the capital city of Lesotho and is a relatively small city with roughly
67 vehicles registered each day. Traffic lights are used with the intension of effectively
managing vehicular traffic at junctions. These traffic lights follow a predetermined
sequence usually based on historic data. As a result of this design, they inherently fail to
efficaciously manage traffic flow when it is abnormal. Vehicles on one side have to wait
even though there are no cars on other sides of the road. The consequences of this include
increased congestion and atmospheric air pollution. Technological advancements have
resulted in the now widely researched Internet of Things paradigm with one of its
applications being vehicular traffic management. The focus of this paper is the design of a
prototype reactive system based on Internet of Things whose functionality includes traffic
lights that are capable of reacting to prevailing conditions. The system makes use of Radio
Frequency IDentifier technology and mobile tools to ubiquitously collect traffic data and
disseminate value added traffic information.
