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Congestion in traffic is a serious problem nowadays. Although it seems to pervade everywhere, mega cities are the ones most affected by it. And it's ever increasing nature makes it imperative to know the road traffic density in real time for better signal control and effective traffic management. There can be different causes of congestion in traffic like insufficient capacity, unrestrained demand, large Red Light delays etc. While insufficient capacity and unrestrained demand are somewhere interrelated, the delay of respective light is hard coded and not dependent on traffic. Therefore the need for simulating and optimizing traffic control to better accommodate this increasing demand arises. In recent years, video monitoring and surveillance systems have been widely used in traffic management for traveler's information, ramp metering and updates in real time. The traffic density estimation and vehicle classification can also be achieved using video monitoring systems. This paper presents the method to use live video feed from the cameras at traffic junctions for real time traffic density calculation using video and image processing. It also focuses on the algorithm for switching the traffic lights according to vehicle density on road, thereby aiming at reducing the traffic congestion on roads which will help lower the number of accidents. In turn it will provide safe transit to people and reduce fuel consumption and waiting time. It will also provide significant data which will help in future road planning and analysis. In further stages multiple traffic lights can be synchronized with each other with an aim of even less traffic congestion and free flow of traffic.
Kanungo et al. (Sat,) studied this question.