Detection, Monitoring & Machine Vision

According to Australia’s federal infrastructure and transport minister, Anthony Albanese, an Australia-wide electronic freeway management system has the potential to greatly reduce congestion and save Australian families and businesses more than US$500 million a year. Albanese said as much as he announced the US$21 million contract to deliver an Intelligent Transport System (ITS) and communications infrastructure to the Westgate freeway managed motorway project in Victoria under the national smart managed m

Arizona’s traffic operations centre was built more than twenty years ago; the first traffic camera was installed over Interstate10 in 1990. That’s all changed now thanks to a recent US$2.1 million upgrade of the camera system by Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) which replaced cables with fibre optic lines, so the cameras now show fresh images every ten seconds rather than every five minutes. The upgrade has also replaced the 32 video screens in the traffic operations centre, enabling staff to sca

As part of the Heart of Slough improvement project, new traffic intersections across seven key sites in and around Slough, UK have been equipped with a total of 162 Siemens WiMag wireless magnetometer sensors by Siemens to help improve the management of traffic using the A4 and travelling to and from the town centre. Complementing the company’s proven loop and radar detection solutions, the sensors provide the Heart of Slough project with an alternative traffic detection system that uses magnetic disturbanc

The US City of Greenville has begun phasing in new vehicle detection technology at its traffic signals. The state-of-the-art traffic sensors are expected to provide numerous benefits to motorists including improved safety, cost savings, greater mobility and increased productivity. The city’s 115 vehicle-activated signalised intersections currently have more than 900 in-road sensors that detect the presence of vehicles. The loop detectors, which have been widely used throughout the US for more than four de

In Minnesota, US, the most common measure for snow management performance is the time it takes to completely clear a roadway after a snow event ends. Currently, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) relies on visual inspections by its field crews to estimate this bare pavement recovery time. To help MnDOT more accurately and reliably estimate the performance of its snow management activities, researchers from the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) have developed a prototype process that uses

One of the most congested interstates in Virginia, US, is to get an Active Traffic Management (ATM) system. The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has selected TransCore, a division of Roper Industries, to design and build its I-66 ATM system on northern Virginia’s main highway into the District of Columbia. The US$34 million contract is 90 percent federally funded and will support thirty-four miles of highway from the District of Columbia to Gainesville US-29 in Prince William County. The projec

Work to upgrade part of the M62 in West Yorkshire to a managed motorway, the first scheme in the Yorkshire and Humber region, reached a significant milestone when the first overhead electronic signs went live. For the first time, the variable advisory speed limit signs have come into operation between junctions 27 and 28 to allow the UK Highways Agency to calibrate and test the technology required for the new managed motorway, with the signs being switched on and off in response to traffic conditions. Advis

Swiss manufacturer of non-intrusive traffic detectors ADEC Technologies has added to its range of radar traffic detectors with the TDD1-MW75, a Doppler radar traffic detector with a 75 m (250 ft.) detection range. The TDD1-MW75 can be conveniently configured for detection range of 30/45 and 75 metres (100/150/250 ft) using an infra red remote control, available as extra accessory. The detector is specifically designed for green phase request or extension at temporary or permanent traffic lights. “While ther

Image Sensing Systems (ISS) has introduced what it claims is the fastest, most accurate automated licence plate recognition (ALPR) engine in the world with its CitySync rapid plate recognition technology. The rapid plate recognition technology reads a licence plate numerous times and uses multiple advanced methods for both optical character recognition and plate finding for each plate read. The system looks for objects and then initiates multiple processing techniques that run concurrently on vehicles trave

Finland’s capital city, Helsinki, has installed an intelligent vehicle access control system in an effort to increase road safety, reduce hazardous emissions and make the city centre more cyclist and pedestrian friendly. Developed by Dutch vehicle detection supplier Nedap, the system provides selective vehicle access control, enabling the city to regulate traffic move movements and reduce the volume of vehicles in the city centre, by allowing only vehicles with a valid permit to enter. The system offers a