Abstract:
The Traffic Control System of a country is a main area that has the potential to affect the
development of a country in a very extensive scale. The existing traffic control systems in
Sri Lanka, UniRoadl and UniRoad2 are highly dependent on the statistical traffic
information gathered from time to time using manual methods(using people etc.) which are
more difficult to rely on. The main drawback of all these systems is that they cannot adapt
signal timing dynamically according to the situation. A system with the capability of
altering signal timing as per real time situations will be more effective and productive. For
that it needs a proper traffic parameter estimation system which should offer features like
reliability and efficiency to a far beyond the manual methods. This will save time wasted
at highway while reducing fuel consumption, noise and air pollution in urban areas.
Various parties like Traffic Police, the Road Development Authority and ultimately the
whole community will be benefited from such a system. The basis of such a system would
be a method for reliably approximating the traffic flow in real time, at a low cost. This
research paper discusses how to approximate the traffic flow from video streams and why
some of the methods attempted are not suitable for such a system.
