As Freeway work-zones become more and more dangerous for roadway construction crews, new ways are needed to keep the speed of traffic in the work-zones below the posted maximum. The Dutch Ministry of Transportation (Rijkswaterstaat), along with Pulnix, are evaluating the effectiveness of utilizing video imaging as a method for measuring vehicle travel time, calculating travel speed and automatically reading license plates of offenders.
The effort validates a video imaging system in the real-world environment at various locations. It is important that testing occurs both in Europe and in North America to ensure the concept’s validity. The system utilizes license plate recognition, without actual reading, for tracking vehicles and then measures travel times between sequential locations at various test sites. From travel time values average speed values can be calculated. This gives a speed of travel over the whole work-zone section and not just a spot speed. The system can read the license plate of offenders. On site citing by police
officers is possible. As an alternative, the information can be processed off line and ticketing can be handled fully automatically. The accuracy of the system was tested and approved by the Dutch counterpart of the Bureau of Weights and Measures.
Testing occurred in both Rijkswaterstaat and within Iowa. The results were positive and further implementations are planned.
Project Duration: 1995-2001