The benefits of intelligent traffic systems

            There are several reasons why intelligent transportation systems are being deployed. On the road, they offer up-to-the-minute traffic reports and find available parking. With real-time updates, drivers can select the best travel routes, save fuel and minimize emissions.

Intelligent transportation systems offer benefits along with complexities. There are several reasons why intelligent transportation systems are being deployed. On the road, they offer up-to-the-minute traffic reports and find available parking. With real-time updates, drivers can select the best travel routes, save fuel and minimize emissions. Most importantly, smart traffic solutions improve driver safety and can save lives. New products and systems provide better scalability, reliability and cost-to-benefit ratios.

                Intelligent traffic systems are complex, they include detection and measurement of traffic along major roads, along with remote control and setting of traffic light cycles. Notification is another requirement, providing information for drivers on traffic conditions, parking areas (public information displays) and alternative routes. They also must monitor environmental conditions, view real-time conditions and trigger alarms.These systems are being integrated and managed by a central management and control platform that allows operators to engage in real-time interventions according to real-time conditions . When building traffic management systems, municipalities must consider previous investments which were installed earlier. Their integration in the new scenario is a challenging task for system integrators.

Standards
Standards are key to intelligent transportation systems. Increasingly, 5.9 GHz DSRC technology looks set to replace 915 MHz DSRC in the U.S. and 5.8 GHz DSRC in Europe, as it delivers standardized intelligent traffic products for large deployments. Improved and cost-effective communication capabilities enable the technology to support uses in vehicle, public-safety and commercial applications. Another transmission standard is continuous air-interface, long and medium range, which delivers wide-area communications. This performs well on a number of different network platforms, including 2-G, 3-G and 4-G, as well as satellite, microwave, millimeter-wave, IR, Wi-Max and Wi-Fi. Some users experience difficulty with wireless networks. A dedicated network is required, to prevent the traffic transmission system from overloading.

Scalability
The large number of video devices makes scalability a requirement for intelligent traffic systems. Some experts feel the real issue is system architecture from the edge to the central monitoring station. If you consider that the system is already digital after the processor stage, than there is little difference, if, on the other hand, someone designed the system so that all video came to a central site unprocessed, then you have a different challenge. Bringing standard-based video to a central site requires substantial bandwidth for each camera, either by wireless or a fiber optic network. Of course, digital cameras can be networked, and such networks will not have nearly the bandwidth requirements of analog video streams. Most existing city surveillance cameras are analog, connected to video management software through video encoders. Normally, this has had an impact on the network connecting the various field components; it is up to the system integrator to offer a better solution by adapting the existing system or deciding to replace it. Adapting the architecture to specific projects is easy, thanks to the functions and configuration management tools, the system provides support in emergency conditions and operating procedures can be configured.

Fiber optics
Fiber backbones are expensive and each project has to be examined to justify the cost. As ALPR is used for generating revenue or capturing lost revenues from toll violators and speeders, the difficulty lies in public acceptance. Traffic monitoring technologies are considered an infringement on personal liberties or designed to extract money for questionable reasons. The global cost of the technology is considerably decreased compared with the beginning, it cannot, however, be justified when considering the associated civil work and infrastructure, if the potential of these two is not developed or planned to be developed in the future. In certain scenarios, fiber optics is mandatory to assure service quality and reliability. A way to decrease the payback time is to deliver added value and mission-critical services, while sharing transmission bandwidth among various operators.

Reliability
Operating conditions in cities are less challenging than harsh industrial environments, such as the petrochemical sector or combat operations. Sometimes, though, available budgets challenge the system integrator in finding solutions to fit the requirements.

Accurate LPR
Using high-contrast license plate imaging provided by dedicated ALPR cameras, the system compares characters found in plate images with its preloaded font library. This allows it to determine the exact characters on the license plate and its country of origin. The system’s microprocessor compares this information with a user-specified white/black list to determine if entry or exit is allowed. “These Bosch cameras produce images that are unlike those of standard CCTV cameras, comprising white boxes containing license plate characters set against a black background. The cameras do this by removing all ambient light sources, such as headlights and sunlight glare, through optical filtering techniques and images using only the illumination that they put onto the scenes. Uncluttered, high-contrast images make it simple for any ALPR software system to find and process important data. The result is significantly improved accuracy rate rates and more reliable ALPR.

Clear tunnel vision
Lighting challenges in tunnels are being successfully addressed. At road tunnel entrances and exits, light levels change from daylight — as high as 100,000 lux — to the relative gloom of the tunnel’s artificially lit interior. “This places severe demands on cameras deployed in these areas, particularly with regard to sensitivity and dynamic range. The advanced processing power of the camera’s DSP provides improvements in contrast and increases dynamic range through the camera’s proprietary auto black function. By dynamically stretching illumination levels in scenes to reduce darkest areas to (near) black, auto black enhances contrast in color pictures obscured by exhaust fumes or smoke in a tunnel.

The auto black function, previously found only in black-white cameras, results in significant improvements in visibility, enabling control room operators to continue monitoring traffic even in the event of a tunnel fire, the camera combats motion blur by combining features to maintain optimal performance even if the lights go out.