The Advanced Probe Car: Lane-based Traffic Data Collection System with Laser Sensor and Camera

A more functional and intelligent traffic control system needs not only static information about road, but also real-time dynamic information such as volume, speeds, queue lengths, and incident occurrences. Due to this reason, collecting traffic data methods have been evolving considerably and the access to real-time traffic data is becoming routine worldwide. The traditional collection methods using roadside sensors are necessary but not sufficient because of their limited coverage and expensive costs of implementation and maintenance. To solve the limit of roadside sensors, We have developed an advanced probe car which is equipped with cheap laser scanners, camera and GPS, and will propose an automatic method for collecting real-time and lane-based traffic data of neighboring/opposite lanes and information on road side parking cars. The proposed advanced probe car is the first one with lane based positioning capability, enabling lane-based traffic data collection.