Traffic Monitoring at its Best

The coronavirus and its ongoing challenges have highlighted the importance of traffic flow data, the accuracy and effectiveness of the equipment used to capture, coupled to the functionality and ease of use data analysis and software processing.

Local Authorities in the UK have been asked by the DfT to supply regular data reports. Many Local Authorities throughout the UK have done so using data that has been accurately captured utilising the many 1000’s of roadside TagMaster BlackCat devices deployed throughout the UK.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The diagram shows the dramatic decrease in traffic in the UK during March 2020 in relation to the Covid 19 Lockdown. The VDA-Net application provides users with the ability to instantly identify trends and track road use behaviour changes which is made even more obvious by the drastic change in road use thanks to Covid-19.

Highway agencies, Local Authorities and traffic management companies’ nationwide benefit from the easy deployment of the TagMaster product range and the user-friendly back-office software suite – VDA (Vehicle Data Analyser) and the Catalyst in-station.

Additional features such as inbuilt HiOCC provide peace of mind to Traffic Controllers that all incidents are instantly reported and appropriate alerts activated:  VMS, rapid Highways Agency vehicle deployment, emergency services etc…

The versatile sensor array configurations permit up to 24 inductive loop inputs providing monitoring capabilities to the most complex of traffic environments.

 

Sensor Technologies

Multiple sensor types are supported, new technologies will be added as they become available.  The current supported sensors are:

• Inductive Loops
• Switch I/O, allowing external sensor types to be interfaced to the outstation.

Each lane can be configured independently allowing the input of different sensor configurations and dimensions as well as multiple sensor arrays.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Algorithms

• HiOCC.  This algorithm is designed for incident detection.  When a loop detects high occupancy it assumes that an incident has occurred and sends an alert to the in-station.
• Speed Threshold.  This algorithm monitors the average speed of a predefined period.  If the speed changes to a different band, an alarm is sent to the in-station.
• Flow Threshold.  This algorithm monitors the flow of traffic over a predefined period.  If the flow changes to a different band, an alarm is sent to the in-station.
• Complete algorithms for straddle detection and missing axle events.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Communications

• SNTP
• Ethernet
• GSM/GPRS
• RS232
• USB
• TCP/IP
• UDP/IP
• SNMP
• HTTP
• FTP
• CA Serial Protocol
• Serco MPC

The TagMaster CA-T BlackCat product portfolio provides unrivalled data support to maximise Traffic Control centres data analysis and effective management for route control and Traffic flow management.

 

 

Data Types

The following sources of data are supported:

• Supports all CA Traffic loop, radar & tube based counters
• Volume, Speed, Classification, Length, Gap, Headway
• Full BlackCat support for vehicle by vehicle data

TagMaster are able to supply many conversion options for data file types as well as a database conversion service for existing databases.

 

Vehicle by Vehicle Data (VBV)

Rebuilt from the ground up to cope with the modern requirement for VBV data, VDA-Pro R2 allows large ranges of VBV data to be loaded and analysed (64 bit version recommended). The customisable, stackable data filters allow for detailed analysis of subsets of data that has never been achievable before.

 

New Data Management/Validation

The system will examine each file in turn and data check the file’s contents against existing data in the database for consistency and either add it, if it is consistent, or reject it, if it isn’t. Users can then manually investigate the issue in the data.

 

Feature List

• Event Removal – Take account of both global and local events when analysing data
• Data Editing – Powerful set of edit tools to clean and manage source data
• Group Reporting – Quickly generate key data values for a range of sites
• Batch Exporting – Create the same export for a range of sites
• Data Patching- Calculate improved AADTs by using seasonal distributions to fill in missing data
• Virtual Sites – Create cordons and screen lines for area flow analysis
• Compare data – Allows datasets from different sites, periods or intervals to be compared 

 

Next Step:

Contact Us

Read more about our solutions