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CSIRO HELPING TO KEEP ALL EYES ON THE ROAD
On any given day, hundreds of thousands of vehicles of all shapes and sizes, travelling at different speeds, use Australia’s major arterial roadways. Monitoring vehicle movements accurately has always been difficult, particularly as traffic volumes have continued to rise. But technology in this area has just taken a leap forward thanks to advances in computer processing speeds by a team of research scientists at CSIRO Manufacturing and Infrastructure Technology. CSIRO’s Hybrid Modular Processor System technology has just been adopted into a new breed of camera systems for the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority. The Safe-T-Cam system, an automated monitoring system, is used by the RTA to ‘read’ the front numberplate of heavy vehicles to enforce vehicle speed and driver fatigue requirements. There is a network of 26 Safe-T-Cam sites located on key freight routes throughout NSW. The RTA also uses Safe-T-Cam to identify vehicles by their registration number when they are approaching the RTA’s heavy vehicle checking stations. A vehicle’s registration information is processed and queried in a central database and a decision to direct the vehicle into the checking station or not is made in a matter of seconds. Technology previously restricted the tracking ability of systems to heavy vehicles, such as trucks. But Hymod can now monitor all vehicles, if required, under future regulations. RTA project manager Nick Dunkley says the Hymod technology is substantially faster than the systems previously in operation, and is a much smaller piece of equipment, requiring less infrastructure to support it. 'The previous system required underground housings that were air-conditioned and quite substantial in size,' Mr Dunkley says. 'By contrast, the Hymod equipment is small and can be located with the camera equipment on overhead gantries.' The tracking system can track vehicles at 60 frames per second, while a secondary camera will take still images of a vehicle at one quarter of a millisecond when it reaches a trigger point. The still image is used for licence plate recognition software. CSIRO project manager Ashley Dreier says the previous system had more restrictions because of the speed at which it could operate. 'The new system will cope with all vehicles at any time, at any speed, and that information can be accurately used to help improve road safety,' he says.
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