Buses could be used as mobile sensing platforms, sending out live information that can be used to control traffic and detect road hazards, according to European researchers.

In a test, researchers with the Moryne project equipped city buses with environmental sensors and cameras, allowing the vehicles to become transmitters of measurements, warnings and live or recorded videos to anyone allowed to access the data.

The researchers developed a range of technologies for mobile sensing, data acquisition, analyses and telecommunications that could be placed in public buses as a part of a larger effort to improve road safety and traffic management.

Humidity and temperature sensors were embedded on buses as part of tests. One pair of sensors checks the road surface while the other pair analyses the air. The sensors were selected and designed to resist to pollution and quickly acclimatise to the environment, as buses may have to go through tunnels, tiny dark roads, bridges and city parks over the course of a few minutes.

A small powerful on-board computer processes the data gathered by the sensors, and can then warn the bus driver if for example, foggy or icy conditions are imminent.

The computer can also send alerts to a public transport control centre via a variety of wireless connections, including mobile radio systems, wifi or wimax networks, and UMTS (3G). The control centre can in turn warn nearby buses of dangerous conditions through the same wireless channels. The system can also be set up to warn city traffic-monitoring centres of road conditions, making these mobile environmental sensors another way to collect information on top of an existing network.

Another innovation stemming from the project is the bus-mounted road-cam, a video acquisition and processing device that can detect traffic conditions around a bus. The system can be used to spot unauthorised cars in a bus lane and inform the police. The same video system can also be used to count the number of vehicles in adjoining lanes and measure speed, helping to alert a city traffic-monitoring centre of road conditions on the ground, in real time.

Patrice Simon, project co-ordinator, explained: “Most large cities, where this type of system would be deployed, already have very extensive camera systems, inductive loops and environmental sensors networks in place to analyse traffic and weather. But city traffic monitoring authorities involved in the project have told us they consider the information provided by buses as a useful supplement.”

Moryne received funding from the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme for research.

Source: ICT Results