Skip to main content

Mobile LiDAR technology used to capture traffic signal data across Pennsylvania

Engineering, planning and consulting services company Michael Baker International recently completed a nearly US$7-million project for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) to collect data from more than 8,600 traffic signals across the state. Over a year, the Michael Baker team, working with PennDOT’s Traffic Signal Asset Management System (TSAMS), collected nearly 20 million data fields for each of the 8,623 traffic signals analysed, which populated a centralised database to support Pen
November 30, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Engineering, planning and consulting services company Michael Baker International recently completed a nearly US$7-million project for the 6111 Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) to collect data from more than 8,600 traffic signals across the state.  Over a year, the Michael Baker team, working with PennDOT’s Traffic Signal Asset Management System (TSAMS), collected nearly 20 million data fields for each of the 8,623 traffic signals analysed, which populated a centralised database to support PennDOT’s future planning, design, maintenance and operational decision making.
 
With the passage of Pennsylvania Act 89 in 2013, PennDOT identified traffic signals as an area of necessary investment and established the Green Light-Go (GLG) program to manage the dedicated traffic signal funding and corresponding maintenance and operations projects

Michael Baker’s fleet of LiDAR-equipped vehicles are capable of surveying an area by measuring the distance to a target by illuminating it with two laser lights, each of which can measure up to 600,000 points per second with a total maximum measurement frequency of 1,200,000 points per second. The firm’s LiDAR equipped vans collected all visible assets to minimise traffic disruption and prevented technicians from working in traffic lanes.
 
Mobile LiDAR equipped vans collected data from exposed traffic signal infrastructure assets, mapping entire intersections in three-dimensional point clouds, while corresponding spherical imagery was collected using a ladybug camera.

Data from traffic signal cabinet assets was collected by field staff using a project-specific iPad mobile application (app). Electronic files of traffic signal records were transferred and attached to the database and pertinent filed paper documents were scanned to retrieve information electronically.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Automating enforcement of environmental zones
    July 27, 2012
    Amsterdam City Council has chosen to move away from manual enforcement of its environmental zone, which is intended to keep highly polluting goods vehicles out of the city centre, and is installing an automated, ANPR-based system. The signs are not much to look at: white with a red circle and the all-important word Milieuzone ('Environmental zone'). But these signs mean that Amsterdam's city centre is strictly off-limits to polluting goods traffic. At the moment compliance is monitored by special wardens wh
  • São Paulo unifies traffic data and services
    September 9, 2014
    The Agência de Transporte do Estado de São Paulo (ARTESP), which oversees public transportation for the State of São Paulo, Brazil, has opened its Information Control Centre, designed to help ensure the quality of service provided by local operators of the state's highways. The centre will unify traffic data, incident management and service delivery through the use of advanced analytics to help ensure safer and more efficient travel for a population of 20 million across 271 cities. The new system, built
  • UITP launches city mobility database
    July 22, 2021
    Public transportation body joins with Moscow Transport to launch CityTransitData project
  • Inrix aids authorities in dealing with data
    August 18, 2015
    New traffic data products and services have been launched to aid transport and urban planners and business with detailed intelligence on journey patterns, reports Jon Masters. Manual travel surveys ought soon to become a thing of the past for transport planners and the business community. The technology now exists for getting sophisticated levels of traffic and trip data from connected vehicles. Cars and commercial fleets carrying a GPS device, or a mobile phone or smartphone are the sources of the informat