Managing Suburban Intersections through Sensing

Increased urban sprawl and increased vehicular traffic have resulted in an increased number of traffic fatalities, the majority of which occur near intersections. According to the National Highway Safety Administration, one out of eight fatalities occurring at intersections is a pedestrian. An intelligent, real-time system capable of predicting situations leading to accidents or near misses will be very useful to improve the safety of pedestrians as well as vehicles. This project investigates the prediction of such situations using current traffic conditions and computer vision techniques. An intelligent system may gather and analyze such data in a scene (e.g., vehicle and pedestrian positions, trajectories, velocities, etc.) and provide necessary warnings. The current work focuses on the monitoring aspect of the project. Certain solutions are proposed and issues with the current implementation are highlighted. The cost of the proposed system is low and certain operational characteristics are presented.