Traffic Signal Transition Time Prediction Based on Aerial Captures during Peak Hours

Owing to flexibility of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and high efficiency of image processing technology, the combined systems become increasingly popular and important in the smart city operations. However, the application scenarios of this technology, especially on the traffic system prediction and multi-vehicle information extraction, still need to be explored. Besides, vehicle's detailed attributes need to be considered when building models. The smart traffic system can be broadly divided into two parts, traffic facilities (e.g. traffic signals, signs and sensors) and participants (e.g. vehicles and pedestrians). Many related works are presented about traffic parameters measurements using UAVs. In this paper, the prediction and traffic signal system analysis through different categories of vehicles' dynamic characteristics extracted from UAVs is presented. The motivation and related work is introduced. A stochastic process framework is presented for multi-vehicle speed extraction and signal transition time distributions at a signalized intersection. Detection and tracking methods/algorithms are proposed. To verify the mathematical model, the experimental data is collected at one intersection, in the city of Singapore during peak hours. After data collection, aerial images are processed to extract information. The regression method and processed parameters help to fit the required dynamic functions for different types vehicles. The estimated distributions reflect the traffic signal transition time provided by ground truths nicely. Moreover, the future research is presented on enhancing the system prediction accuracy and robustness.