Determining Segment and Network Traffic Volumes from Video Data Obtained from Transit Buses in Regular Service: Developments and Evaluation of Approaches for Ongoing Use Across Urban Networks

Transit agencies around the world are increasingly mounting video cameras inside and outside their buses for liability, safety, and security reasons. Some of the cameras provide fields of view that allow observation of vehicles traveling on the surrounding roadways. Such video imagery could conceivably be used to estimate traffic volumes on roadway segments traversed by the transit buses. Transit buses are attractive platforms for acquiring the information that leads to traffic volume estimates, since a fleet of transit buses collectively covers most major surface streets in an urban area and the buses regularly and repeatedly cover the same roadway segments, which would allow for multiple, independent estimates of roadway segment flows across days and by time of day. Since the video cameras are already installed for other purposes, the costs of estimating traffic flows from video obtained from transit buses in regular service would be minimal. Therefore, traffic flows could be estimated with much greater geographic coverage, with much greater frequency, and with much lower cost than is presently available from existing traffic volume observation methods.

• Record URL:
  https://ppms.cit.cmu.edu/projects/detail/318

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $116182
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3551747111

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Carnegie Mellon University

  Mobility21 National USDOT UTC for Mobility of Goods and People
  Pittsburgh, PA  United States  15213

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Center Program
  ,    
• Managing Organizations:

  Carnegie Mellon University

  Mobility21 National USDOT UTC for Mobility of Goods and People
  Pittsburgh, PA  United States  15213
• Project Managers:

  Kline, Robin

• Performing Organizations:

  The Ohio State University

  ,    
• Principal Investigators:

  McCord, Mark

• Start Date: 20200601
• Expected Completion Date: 20230630
• Actual Completion Date: 20230803
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Data collection; Estimating; Traffic volume; Transit buses; Urban areas; Vehicle fleets; Video; Video cameras
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Public Transportation; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01760141
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: National University Transportation Center for Improving Mobility (Mobility21)
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747111
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Dec 16 2020 2:26PM