Real-Time Video-Based Traffic Measurement and Visualization System for Energy/Emissions

The ability to monitor the state of a given roadway in order to better manage traffic congestion has become increasingly important. Sophisticated traffic management systems able to process both the static and mobile sensor data and provide traffic information for the roadway network are under development. In addition to typical traffic data such as flow, density, and average traffic speed, there is now strong interest in environmental factors such as greenhouse gases, pollutant emissions, and fuel consumption. It is now possible to combine high-resolution real-time traffic data with instantaneous emission models to estimate these environmental measures in real time. In this paper, a system that estimates average traffic fuel economy, CO
₂
, CO, HC, and NO
_x
emissions using a computer-vision-based methodology in combination with vehicle-specific power-based energy and emission models is presented. The CalSentry system provides not only typical traffic measures but also gives individual vehicle trajectories (instantaneous dynamics) and recognizes vehicle categories, which are used in the emission models to predict environmental parameters. This estimation process provides far more dynamic and accurate environmental information compared with static emission inventory estimation models.