Design and implementation of an intelligent automobile congestion monitoring system with the fusion of IoT technology

Urban road congestion has become a critical issue due to the rapid growth of city populations, significantly impacting citizens’ daily lives. As traffic density rises and cities expand, environmental pollution intensifies, resulting in degraded air quality, increased fuel consumption, and the acceleration of climate change. In a large and growing metropolis like Hyderabad, intelligent traffic congestion monitoring is essential for managing gridlock and mitigating environmental impacts. This paper proposes a framework for real-time vehicle congestion monitoring using Internet of Things (IoT) sensors. The system provides accurate, up-to-date congestion metrics and identifies the primary causes of traffic bottlenecks, thereby enabling smarter and more efficient urban mobility management. This framework ensures a responsive, sensor-based traffic signal control mechanism that adapts in real time to congestion levels—doesn’t require costly infrastructure and can be realized using IoT-based technologies with high accuracy and low latency. While conventional systems rely on fixed timers and manual intervention, the proposed system responds dynamically in under 1.5 seconds, achieves high accuracy in congestion detection, and saves an estimated 15 liters of fuel daily at a single intersection.