KLK711: Traffic Controller Data Collection System Enhancement, Deployment and Testing

Principal Investigators

Michael Dixon, Ahmed Abdel-Rahim and Richard Wall

Project Objectives

• The primary objective of this proposal is to enhance the ability of our equipment to obtain high quality traffic operations data at any signalized intersection. Obtaining this objective will help meet Goals 1 and 3 and work towards several of their guiding strategies. A description of how this proposal completes or supports activities that work towards these strategies is given in the Table 1 below. This table is organized by goal and the supporting strategies. Activities fulfilled or supported by this proposal lie to the right of their corresponding strategy. The role that this proposed project will take in these activities is classified as either completed or supported. If an activity is classified as completed, project tasks will complete the activity. If an activity is classified as supported, then fulfilling the proposed project objective will assist researchers in completing the activity as part of their future research work.

  As shown below, the proposed project work completes one activity and supports many others, showing that the proposed work plays a major support role for future NIATT UTC research. The support role of the proposed project is that of providing datasets that are essential for monitoring, understanding, and modeling traffic systems and testing research ideas.

  Goal 1: Reduce congestion and improve safety by developing arterial traffic management tools that can be used by practitioners and researchers

  Strategy 1.1: Enhance and utilize new arterial field laboratory to improve our nation’s research database and provide professionals with the opportunity to test new traffic technologies

  • Deploy and test new portable 12-camera video data collection system (complete)
  • Conduct pilot data collection studies of arterial traffic flow characteristics and publish results and data sets online (support)
  • Establish on-line access to laboratory for professionals across U.S. (support)

  Strategy 1.2: Develop improved driver behavior algorithms for congested and uncongested conditions on arterials in support of FHWA’s NGSIM program and develop improved modeling capabilities for arterial operations for TRANSIMS program

  • Collect new vehicle trajectory data and, together with the NGSIM arterial data set, study basic arterial traffic flow theory and phenomena (support)
  • Develop new algorithms and make them available to private software vendors and researchers (support)
  • Integrate our video data collection system with new automated data extraction system developed by North Carolina State University (support)
  • Develop and test traffic signal control strategies to improve flow on congested urban arterials using realistic simulation environments (support)
  • Develop and test new performance measures to enable more effective evaluation and control of arterial traffic systems (support)

  Goal 3: Increase the number of faculty and students in our research education programs to enhance the transportation workforce

  Strategy 3.3: Increase opportunities to engage graduate and undergraduate students in transportation problems

  • Create on-line access to high quality, easily understood traffic data to significantly reduce data collection efforts needed to support thesis and dissertation research (support)

Task Descriptions

TASK 1: Specify and acquire on-site equipment carriage devices and setup tools.

Data collection activities for which this system is intended are short-term (no more than twelve hours). As a result, the data collection system setup time should take no more than two-person hours. With this in mind, specifications for carriage devices will be such that the following requirements are met:

1. Heavy equipment, such as the masts, outdoor enclosures, batteries, and power generators may be transported with little risk to personal injury.
2. Smaller non-fragile equipment such as power transformers, cables, and pole mount brackets may be transported in batches to on-site installations.
3. Larger fragile equipment such video servers, video cameras, video monitors, video detection hardware, time stamp generators, and wireless modems may be transported in batches to on-site installations.
4. Tools required to setup the equipment may be transported in-batch to on-site installations.

Setup tools needed for installing the system need to meet the following requirements:

1. Electrical connections can be made and repaired.
2. Lenses and screens can be cleaned.
3. Hex-nut fasteners can be tightened and loosened.

TASK 2: Incorporate additional data into the video view.

This task will enhance the data collection system by enabling researchers to imprint additional information into the video screen. Traffic flow theory, performance measurement, and traffic control strategy studies rely on three types of information: traffic data, detector status, and the controller state. On their own, video cameras can only record data for phenomena that are visible within the camera field of view, such as traffic data and signal indications. However, situations do arise where the signal indication cannot be captured in the camera field of view and cameras cannot record detector status by themselves. Off-the-shelf products exist that can imprint signal indication and detector status on the video screen.

One product in particular is the Autoscope Rackvision. Video from a camera is input to the RackVision and contact closure inputs are allowed through a DB-9 connection. The RackVision device imprints the state of the contact closure inputs on the video, which is then output to be recorded on the video server. As shown below, the contact closure information will be obtained by connecting to the appropriate termination points in the controller cabinet and transmitting them out of the cabinet using a transmitter/receiver pair of wireless modems. For this project, the Autoscope currently in stock at the University of Idaho will be evaluated and used if the performance is acceptable. For instance, the University of Idaho currently owns earlier versions of the Autoscope which will be evaluated to determine if their functionality meets project Task 2 objectives. Engineers at Econolite will be consulted to determine the most appropriate use of their hardware. In particular, Dave Candy will be consulted to discuss suitable alternatives.

This task will be completed when the hardware required to imprint detector and status and controller state are acquired. The quantity of hardware should be sufficient to imprint the following for four phases at an intersection on four cameras (one for each phase):

• Green
• Yellow
• top bar detector
• Advanced detector

TASK 3: Beta-test the data collection system by deploying it to one signalized intersection.

This task involves an operational test of the data collection system, where the resulting video will only be analyzed to ensure that the various data collection components are operating as expected. There are a large number of components and each one must function in order for acceptable data collection. A component can fail to serve its purpose if it was setup improperly, inadequate power supply, or faulty connections. To determine whether or not the system is completed, it will be deployed to the field. If any system malfunctions occur then they will be noted.

TASK 4: Modify the data collection system based on the beta-test results.

Based on the notes taken in the beta test, the data collection system will be modified to correct any system malfunctions. If the corrections needed are of a nature that researchers are fully confident in the system performing as needed then no further beta-testing will be needed and Tasks 3 and 4 are complete.

TASK 5: Pilot data collection studies.

Once the data collection system and controller data logger are finalized, they will be fully deployed at one site. The purposes of the deployment are as follows: 1. Measure change interval driver behavior 2. Measure left-turn driver behavior 3. Determine the quality of performance measures derived from the controller data logger

TASK 6: Develop and validate an automated tool to obtain controller-based performance measures.

An automated tool will be developed to extract different intersection performance measures based on the detector and signal indication data collected by the data logging device. Output of the automated tool will be verified and validated using data collected in the pilot data collection studies performed as part of Task 5. This task and its corresponding milestones will be coordinated with the Smart Signals Project. Products of the Smart Signals Project will be tested and the performance measurement system will provide the test results data needed to verify product performance. Milestones for this task are as follows: 1. Designed performance measure extraction tool. This tool is a computer program that interfaces with the controller data logger database, hosted on a PC to extract information pertinent to performance measures in real-time. The tool then processes the information to finally result in the desired performance measures. 2. Completed performance measure extraction tool beta version. 3. Tested performance measure extraction tool beta version in the context of the specifications. This test is off-line to verify that it meets the design specifications. 4. Modified the performance measure extraction tool to meet specifications. 5. Documented performance measure extraction tool.

TASK 7: Coordinate with Smart Signals Project.

Controller data are also being accessed and disseminated in another research project. The controller data logger accesses the controller data via the controller cabinet back panel and transmits the data to a database on a PC via an Ethernet connection. The product developed and being researched further in the Smart Signals Project accesses the controller data via an Ethernet port in the controller.

In addition, the Smart Signals product distributes the data to multiple points, one of which can be a PC with a database. Connecting to the data via the controller cabinet back panel offers the short-term advantage of working with a currently pervasive traffic controller cabinet design. However, connecting via an Ethernet port is useful in the short-term and offers a substantial long-term advantage. Ethernet connections are of use in the short-term because critical intersections that are in the process of being upgraded will very likely be upgraded to TS2 controllers that provide an Ethernet port. The long-term Ethernet advantage is that new controllers are produced with Ethernet ports and controller cabinets will no longer need to include back panels.

Therefore, in order for the controller data logger to be of short-term and long-term significance it should be modified to include an Ethernet access to the controller data, in addition to the back panel access. Milestones for this task are as follows: 1. Augmented the current controller data logger hardware design to include an Ethernet connection to the controller. This Ethernet connection would be in addition to the current connection to the back panel. The Ethernet connection may be direct to the controller or through a local area network inside the controller cabinet. 2. Upgrade the current controller data logger software to be compatible with an Ethernet access to controller data. The software upgrade will support two data access options: Ethernet and pack panel.

TASK 8: Write the final report.

Milestones
 

Budget Information

UTC funds committed to this project: $90,000.

Student Involvement

Three graduate students; 2 undergraduate students.

Technology Transfer Activities

• Final report
• Mobile data collection system
• Controller data logger: back panel and Ethernet capable
• Automated performance measure extraction tool

Potential Benefits of the Project:

This project will directly benefit researchers in several ways:

• More efficient high quality video based data collection
• Choice of any intersection location
• Capture the full extent of congested traffic from the intersection to the end of the queue
• Digital data storage of video and controller data for easy access, backup, and dissemination
• Model tool for easy performance measure extraction from a controller data logger database

This project will benefit the public by improving traffic models, which will result in better designs and operations for the transportation infrastructure. In addition, this project will benefit the public and engineering profession by improving the capacity to extract meaningful signalized intersection performance measures. Such measures will be a valuable input to traveler information services and to traffic operations improvement projects.

Project status

Active

Final Report