COEUT - Reports and Technical Documents

The rapidly increasing use of vehicles in India, spurred by the population boom and economic upturn has resulted in acute traffic congestion in its urban roads. The principal reason for traffic congestion and related inconveniences in India is that the road space and infrastructure have not improved in par with the traffic. According to road transport ministry, road space in India has only increased at an annual rate of 2.5%, compared to an over 10% annual rate of increase in vehicular population in the last year. Possible solutions to these problems include easing congestion by staggering office hours, carpooling, tele‐work, and the more recent Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). ITS technologies such as state‐of‐art data acquisition technology, communication networks, digital mapping, video monitoring, sensors and variable message signs are creating new trends in traffic management throughout the world. Data acquisition is the first step towards planning and implementing ITS. Although there are several data collection techniques all over the world, they may not work as such in India due to the unique nature of the Indian traffic condition ‐ heterogeneity and lack of lane discipline. Until now, there are no proven data‐acquisition technologies suited specifically to Indian traffic conditions. The present study attempts to evaluate and compare the performance of some of the most successful ITS data collection technologies under Indian traffic conditions. The comparative evaluations described can serve as guidelines for user agencies in choosing the best data collection technology suited to their specific application. Comparison of various technologies in terms of performance, initial cost, installation difficulty, maintenance issues, and technical support is provided, which will help the user agencies to choose the appropriate technology for their requirement. This report also details the developmental work carried out for sensors specifically suited for Indian conditions as part of this project. Based on the comprehensive review and commercial availability, the following technologies were identified as potential sensors that can be used under Indian conditions with appropriate calibration/modification/redevelopment. • Video based sensors • Radar based sensors • Infrared based sensors • Inductive loop detector Of the above, the presently available inductive loop detectors are better suited for lanebased organized traffic and hence cannot be used under traffic conditions will poor lane discipline. Hence, a new inductive loop detector that can identify different classes of vehicles as well as with poor lane discipline is developed as part of this project. Video based sensors have the potential to work under varying traffic conditions and are evaluated in this study. Collect‐R, a commercially available integrated system that processes videos at site, was evaluated. Trazer, a real‐time video processing systems suited for heterogeneous traffic conditions have been analyzed for mid‐block locations. Gridsmart is another video based sensor specifically designed for an intersection was also evaluated. Attempts are also underway for in‐house development of an image processing solution. The TIRTL (Transportable Infra‐Red Traffic logger), an IR detector manufactured by CEOS Pvt. Ltd., Australia, was tested for its capacity to classify vehicles, detect the lane in which the vehicle is passing, speed and volume. Smartsensor, a commercially available radar based sensor of Wavetronix, was also evaluated. This report summarizes results that have been obtained during preliminary testing of the selected data acquisition devices. These results pave the way for more extensive testing that will aid in the development of indigenous data acquisition technologies for future intelligent transport systems in India.

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