Vehicle traffic congestion monitoring system

Abstract

Much as the number of vehicles in Uganda has rapidly grown, the roads capacity is insufficient, which has caused congestion of vehicles on the roads. Road accidents, road works among other situations sometimes reduce the throughput of vehicles that should use a particular road, which also leads to heavy congestion of vehicles in traffic as well as road closure especially during political unrest. Furthermore, motorists are never informed or aware about the traffic condition on particular roads they opt to use at a given time, hence they are usually caught up by the traffic jam. This causes fatigue and time wastage to the motorists, who consequently arrive late to their scheduled destinations. This traffic jam status information access gap was bridged through the development of a vehicle traffic congestion monitoring system that promptly notify motorists about the traffic condition of the road they intend to use such that they can informatively decide on whether to continue that road or use an alternate road. The project scope was limited to Uganda Police Force, specifically the traffic police department whose head offices are located along Katalima road, Naguru, Uganda. The objectives of the project were fulfilled using a number of tools and techniques. In objective one, the researchers carried out a study using data collection tools like questionnaires and interview guides. In objective two, the project was designed using data flow diagrams and entity relationship diagrams. In objective three, the system was developed using HTML, PHP, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, MySQL, and Bootstrap. In objective four, the developed system was tested using techniques such as black-box and whitebox testing of different units as well as the whole integrated system. The system was validated by taking it to the users to confirm whether it meets the user requirements. A validation questionnaire was provided to the users and results were analyzed using excel spreadsheets. From the results of validation, it was realized that the users of the developed system confirmed that it is; secure through data validation checks (96%), scalable (81%), authenticates users (91%), efficient (94%), effective (93%), and user friendly (94%). Therefore, based on the findings of the study, the researchers recommend that the developed vehicle traffic congestion monitoring system should be adopted and deployed for efficient and effective traffic status information access amongst the stakeholders, especially the motorists in Kampala Uganda.