Validating Traffic Flow-detectors using Manual Counting from Video Data (FAST Freeway Flow Detectors Verification)

According to the FAST/NDOT inter-local agreement for the freeway management system (FMS) scope of service, traffic volumes from freeway flow detectors (FDD) need to be compared and verified. The total lane-by-lane traffic counts need to be verified to assure that the FDD is properly aligned and calibrated. This Scope of work outlines tasks for the implementation of traffic count verification for the freeway flow detectors on segments of I-15, US-95 and CC 215. FAST provided traffic counts and corresponding videos of traffic flow extracted from the FMS database and freeway surveillance videos of the same time periods and locations to be verified. The University of Las Vegas (UNLV) Transportation Research Center (TRC) verified the traffic counts (lane-by-lane) from the videos. Data analysis was applied to the traffic counts and verification, and this report was generated to document the verification results. This report provides various methods for analysis and hypothesis testing for paired data where one source of data has to be tested against a noisy source for validation. In this work, traffic counts for some highway locations obtained from flow detectors have to validated against the data obtained by manual counting of video data obtained from those sites. However, the video data has various levels of clarity that is recorded by the human observers, and hence a technique that performs validation with such recorded noisy data is needed. The various techniques that have been developed include weighted percent difference test, and combined variance test. The techniques are applied to the sample data and results presented. The research obtained the mean percent difference between the detector data and the normalized observed data to be 0.858%, and the 95% confidence interval for the mean to be (0.855%, 0.860%).

• Record URL:
  https://sites.google.com/site/fastdetectors/home
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Final report can be found at http://nutc.unlv.edu/ProjectsInfo/Flow/Flow.pdf Other project information can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/fastdetectors/home

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $2717.00
• Contract Numbers:

  DTRT06-G-0034

  PO 4500136999-401

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Research and Innovative Technology Administration

  ITS - Joint Program Office
  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC    20590

  Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada

  600 S Grand Central Pkwy
  Suite 350
  Las Vegas, NV  United States  89106
• Project Managers:

  Shlayan, Neveen

• Performing Organizations:

  Transportation Research Center

  University of Nevada, Las Vegas
  4505 Maryland Parkway, MS 4007
  Las Vegas, NV  United States  89154
• Principal Investigators:

  Kachroo, Pushkin

• Start Date: 20100515
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 20100630
• Source Data: RiP Project 28308

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Freeway management systems; Traffic counts; Traffic data; Traffic flow; Traffic surveillance; Traffic volume; Vehicle detectors; Video cameras
• Uncontrolled Terms: Data verification
• Geographic Terms: Nevada
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01467992
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Research Center
• Contract Numbers: DTRT06-G-0034, PO 4500136999-401
• Files: UTC, RIP, USDOT
• Created Date: Jan 3 2013 3:43PM