A Survey and Comparison of Low-Cost Sensing Technologies for Road Traffic Monitoring

Abstract

This paper reviews low-cost vehicle and pedestrian detection methods and compares their accuracy. The main goal of this survey is to summarize the progress achieved to date and to help identify the sensing technologies that provide high detection accuracy and meet requirements related to cost and ease of installation. Special attention is paid to wireless battery-powered detectors of small dimensions that can be quickly and effortlessly installed alongside traffic lanes (on the side of a road or on a curb) without any additional supporting structures. The comparison of detection methods presented in this paper is based on results of experiments that were conducted with a variety of sensors in a wide range of configurations. During experiments various sensor sets were analyzed. It was shown that the detection accuracy can be significantly improved by fusing data from appropriately selected set of sensors. The experimental results reveal that accurate vehicle detection can be achieved by using sets of passive sensors. Application of active sensors was necessary to obtain satisfactory results in case of pedestrian detection.

A Low-Cost Automatic Vehicle Identification Sensor for Traffic Networks Analysis

“…The cost of the designed sensor is similar to some of the low-cost sensors discussed in [ 22 ]. However, the offered functionality can be compared to commercial systems with a significantly greater cost.…”

“…This makes necessary to develop new architectural approaches that allow these types of services to be deployed on a larger scale to face transportation problems such as urban mobility plans. It is worth noting the survey collected in [ 22 ], which analyzes the sensors to monitor traffic from the point of view of various criteria, including cost. In this study, it is highlighted that the new sensors tend to be of reduced dimensions, of low energy consumption and that, with a certain number of them, it is possible to design and configure a sophisticated wireless sensor network (WSN) that can cover multiple observations in a certain region [ 23 , 24 ].…”

Analysis of Methods for Long Vehicles Speed Estimation Using Anisotropic Magneto-Resistive (AMR) Sensors and Reference Piezoelectric Sensor

“…Information obtained by ITSs is necessary to provide various services that enable smoother, safer, and environmentally friendly transportation. Scientists have investigated various vehicle detection methods, ranging from inductive loops, piezo/quartz, and air switches/road tubes to various magnetometers, microwave radars, passive infrareds, ultrasonic, and video surveillance systems [ 1 , 2 , 3 ].…”

Traffic wave model based on vehicle‐infrastructure cooperative and vehicle communication data

“…Traditional traffic information collection is mostly based on traffic parameter detectors distributed along various lines, including coil detectors, ultrasonic detectors, infrared monitors, microwave detectors, and video detectors. 5,6 But the traditional traffic information detector has many inconveniences and often produces flawed data. The fundamental differences between VICS and traditional traffic information collection are (1) The comprehensiveness, accuracy, and convenience of data acquisition; and (2) the fact that VICS can overcome the fundamental problem with traditional traffic information collection; namely, that traditional methods can only detect section of traffic information.…”