CHAPTER 2

2.1 Literature Review

The invention of the internal combustion engine was in 1859 by Étienne Lenoir. This gave rise to
the invention of the first motor vehicle in 1886 by Karl Benz. With time more efficient ways of
manufacturing motor vehicles have been devised leading to increased number of motor vehicles
on our roads. Build up of traffic has been a common sight in all major cities creating the need for
an efficient traffic control method.

Prajakta Date et al. (2014) [1] designed a dynamic traffic control system based on
predetermined intervals. Certain junctions remain empty even in the case where there are no
traffic therefore road users have to just wait until the light turns green.

C. Y Patil et al. (2018) [2] proposed an Intelligent Transportation System that was based on
sensors and wireless communication to regulate flow of traffic volume. This system didn’t meet
the full demand because it only depended on sensing heat from the vehicles in traffic to send
actuating signals. The climatic differences between Kenya and India make the system unsuitable
here.

Sathiyaraj, R., & Bharathi, A. (2019). [3] proposed an intelligent traffic control system by use
of multi-agent data to avoid congestion. This system uses the GPS trackers on the vehicles to
automatically sense the location of high-density traffic routes. This system cannot be applied in
our country given that most vehicles on our roads are PSVs and are not normally installed with
GPS trackers.

2.2 Problem Formulation

The amount of time that a certain traffic signal is on will be determined using the multiple
regression formula. Multiple regression formula is used in the analysis between dependent and
multiple independent variables. In our formulation, the dependent variable will be the amount of
time that a certain traffic signal is on, and the independent variables will be the number of
pedestrians waiting to cross, the number of vehicles at an intersection, and the maximum speed.
The amount of time will be:

©2020 B.O. OJWANG 1 UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI

t = mx1 + mx2+ mx3+ k (2.1)

Where:
• t= amount of time that a certain traffic signal is on
• m= slope of the regression
• x1= number of pedestrians waiting to cross
• x2= number of vehicles at an intersection
• x3= maximum speed
• k= constant
Data will be collected and fed to the model to improve it’s accuracy and the accuracy of the
model will be determined using the Mean Squared error formula:
MSE t`= E( t` − t) 2 = Var( t`) + (E(t`) − t) 2 = V ar(t`) + (Bias of t) 2 2.2
Where the bias of t is the difference between the expected value of t` and t.

©2020 B.O. OJWANG 2 UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI