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Application Areas
Vehicle Sensors
Description
This center-to-field application area covers the interface between a center and a specific type of roadway equipment that provides vehicle detection, traffic monitoring, and extraction of traffic flow data (volume, speed, occupancy, etc.). This interface supports the capability for the center to monitor traffic conditions, identify and verify incidents, detect faults in detector operations, and collect data for traffic strategy development and long range planning. All types of vehicle and traffic detector technologies are covered by this application area including inductive loops, microwave sensors, acoustic sensors, magnetic sensors, machine vision sensors, and video image detection systems.
National ITS Architecture Interface
This application area includes the interface between the Traffic Management Subsystem (TMS) and the vehicle sensors in the Roadway Subsystem (RS) and covers operational use of vehicle sensors. In this application area, raw or processed traffic detector information is collected and used to determine traffic measures such as volume, speed, and occupancy. Processed visual image data from the RS is also sent to the TMS to support incident detection and verification, including processed traffic sensor data that can be analyzed for the possible presence of incidents. A TMS remotely controls the vehicle sensors in the RS by sending information for initialization, configuration, and control to the RS. This exchange of information can include basic sensor control, as well as control commands for advanced sensors, such as video image detection systems. The sensor systems respond with the current operating status information (including fault information) when requested. Use of vehicle sensors for off-line traffic data collection is covered by the Data Collection/Monitoring application area.Applicable Standards
In general, the following standards are applicable to Vehicle Sensors deployments. To determine which specific standards are applicable for a deployment you will need to determine which architecture flows will be needed for the Vehicle Sensors piece of your deployment. Contact your local FHWA ITS Division Specialist or an ITS Standards Program Field Support Team contact
Deployment Resources
Deployment resources can be found in the deployment resources
section.