Traffic Sensor; Helps Improve the Capacity and Efficiency of Transportation Networks

 

Traffic sensors are widely used for data collection, automatic incident detection, and traffic management. These sensors provide data regarding speed, traffic, and area occupancy, as well as help avoid congestion in the large metropolitan areas. Furthermore, traffic sensors help to distinguish different service levels such as fluid, queue, congestion, and dense by accurately measuring average flow speed. Traffic sensors also help improve the capacity and efficiency of transportation networks.

Many types of traffic sensors are available in the market, such as passive acoustic sensors, passive infrared sensors, ultrasonic sensors, magnetometers, microwave radar sensors, laser radar sensors, video image processors, and inductive-loop detectors. Application of these sensors includes measurement of vehicle volume, mainline control, traffic signal control, and incident detection. However, there are different types of traffic sensors and they fall into several categories. The most common ones include vehicle angle alarms, vehicle trackers, e-distance sensors, and radar sensors.

Each of these has its own specific uses but all are designed to provide information about traffic levels in a controlled environment. Each of these types of sensors can be used to detect a number of different events. Some of these happen to be part of a larger system such as an infrared camera system. One of the major factor expected to increase the demand for traffic sensors is increasing traffic volumes worldwide. For instance, a smart city projects in Europe, Hamburg is determined to tackle its urban mobility and sustainability challenges head-on.

Hamburg is building a reputation as Germany´s most innovative smart city. The city of Hamburg opted for FLIR´s ThermiCam 2, an integrated thermal sensor and detector for vehicle and bike detection. Data collection and data analysis will allow the city´s traffic authorities to make smarter decisions. Traffic sensor is a systematic solution for the prevention of this issues.