Ukrainian teenager develops “smart traffic light” that can analyze road safety

16-year-old schoolboy Bohdan Hlavatskyi from Ukraine's western city of Lviv created a "smart" traffic light that can analyze and control a dangerous situation on the road and warn all traffic participants about it.

Rubryka reports about the development of the young inventor, citing dev.ua.

What is the problem?

"In 2022, 18,628 road accidents with casualties occurred in Ukraine, where 2,791 people died, and 23,145 people were injured," said Oleksii Biloshytskyi, deputy head of the Ukrainian Patrol Police Department.

The leading causes of such accidents were exceeding the safe and established speed of movement, violation of maneuvering rules, violation of traffic rules at the intersection, violation of pedestrian crossing rules, and not keeping the distance.

Once, Bohdan became an eyewitness to a road accident while on his way to school by public transport. A traffic accident occurred at one of the intersections of Lviv's narrow streets. There were no casualties then, but the event practically paralyzed traffic on the road.

What is the solution?

The dangerous road situation that Bohdan saw firsthand inspired him to improve the traffic light system and create the project. The 16-year-old boy created a "smart" traffic light.

The teenager presented his project at the International Competition European Exhibition of Creativity and Innovation "Euroinvent 2023," where he won two gold medals from the Moldova Technical University and the Portuguese delegation.

How does it work?

The boy told his supervisor about the situation, and they added some automation to the traffic regulation process. They selected options for electronic devices for the car and the road for a long time, but they all required a lot of money and changes to the Traffic Rules.

Bohdan and his supervisor analyzed available devices, ensuring traffic safety. It turned out that many video surveillance tools allow you to quickly and accurately determine which drivers violate traffic rules.

According to Bohdan, the project's main task was to find a way to convey information about the danger as quickly as possible to all traffic participants without exception.

"I spent a long time going through the options of electronic devices that are installed in the car or light informative boards above the intersection, but all this required huge capital investments and making changes to the Traffic Rules, and all over the world at the same time," Bohdan recalls.

The team decided to use a traffic light, which turns on a red light for all road users in case of potential danger. When the threat disappears, the traffic light returns to normal operation mode.

For development, Bohdan used Arduino software. He added only a few lines of code to the traffic control system, but all of them turned out to be very useful. The software written in the program analyzes the situation every 20 milliseconds. The conversion of one traffic light installed on Ukrainian streets will cost $100.