This is a sample question for middle school math, published by the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. I found it here.

Looking at this graph, you see that after about 10 minutes, there are 11 cars per minute going through the intersection – and that’s the most cars. After about 25 minutes, there are zero cars going through the intersection, and after that, there is a negative number of cars (!!!).

I don’t think this equation models anything having to do with any intersection I’ve ever visited. Instead, I think that any intersection controlled by a traffic light is going to be more periodic, that is to say, something like some mix of sine or cosine functions — obviously not middle school material.