Autonomous Traffic System for Emergency Vehicles

Abstract

An emergency can occur at any time. To overcome that emergency efficiently, we require seamless movement on the road to approach the destination within a limited time by using an Emergency Vehicle (EV). This paper proposes an emergency vehicle management solution (EVMS) to determine an efficient vehicle-passing sequence that allows the EV to cross a junction without any delay. The proposed system passes the EV and minimally affects the travel times of other vehicles on the junction. In the presence of an EV in the communication range, the proposed system prioritizes the EV by creating space for it in the lane adjacent to the shoulder lane. The shoulder lane is a lane that cyclists and motorcyclists will use in normal situations. However, when an EV enters the communication range, traffic from the adjacent lane will move to the shoulder lane. As the number of vehicles on the road increases rapidly, crossing the EV in the shortest possible time is crucial. The EVMS and algorithms are presented in this study to find the optimal vehicle sequence that gives EVs the highest priority. The proposed solution uses cutting-edge technologies (IoT Sensors, GPS, 5G, and Cloud computing) to collect and pass EVs’ information to the Roadside Units (RSU). The proposed solution was evaluated through mathematical modeling. The results show that the EVMS can reduce the travel times of EVs significantly without causing any performance degradation of normal vehicles.