Overview
The recent economic situation in the Czech Republic does not allow ensuring effective control over road traffic solely by means of human resources (i.e. police road patrols). Therefore it is necessary to search for a way to lower the losses caused by accidents, or more precisely by costs of emergency response, medical care and economic support of persons who become temporarily or permanently disabled as a result of road accidents.
The aim was to contribute to solution of this organisationally and economically complicated situation by implementing intelligent automatic traffic systems that will force the drivers to change their behaviour in a positive way, through continuous surveillance or preventive informative activity.
PREVENT has been designed with the primary idea of protecting critical accident sites and it is significantly focused on the field of prevention.
The purpose of the project is to increase safety, to lower the accident rate and to improve quality of life of citizens living in areas extremely affected by road traffic.
It should also lower negative phenomena redevelopment costs, related to road traffic:
- loss, or damage to human lives, material property,
- post-accidental psychological traumas,
- perceived stress caused by excessive traffic,
- damage to the environment as a result of combustion engines' emission during congestions,
- increased vehicle noise at higher speeds,
- damage to building along the road as a result of heavy goods vehicle driving at excessive speed (close relation to pavement condition),
- damage to pavement surface by excessively loaded heavy goods vehicles.
It will provide preventive education of road users in the region. Road users will be preventively informed or warned of dangers through electronic message signs.
The project works to bring a system solution based on three modules:
- Detection and communication technology;
- Data centre; and
- Coordination and development centre.
Funding
Results
The project's output is the PREVENT system. It is a system solution, composed of three basic modules:
1) Detection and Communication Technology module
This assumes that automatic traffic detection technologies will be installed to accident sites for continuous surveillance. The detection technology will allow to identify the speed limit excessing vehicle by recording its LP (licence plate) and immediate displaying of this information pair (speed + LP) and to affect drivers approaching accident site preventatively. Individual components and whole technologies are connected by available communication channels.
2) Data Central module
This represents a server database collecting all the data produced by PREVENT system. It allows distribution of data to end-users and working with data in real-time. Data will provide on-line as well as historical information on specific vehicles' speed (only licence plates of vehicles violating traffic rules), traffic intensity and traffic flow composition, and weather conditions.
3) Coordination and Development Central module
This is represented by the team of experts from the fields of transport telematics, transport safety, transport psychology, transport and the environment, transport legislation and logistics. It will provide effective coordination of project realization process and allow to continually develop the system in compliance with world trends in order to achieve maximal effectivity while utilising given sources.
Policy implications
- Informing drivers about committing specific violation at the concerned site in real-time.
- Traffic flow speed reduction at the specified sites.
- Limiting drivers' aggressive behaviour at the high accident rate sites.
- Collection of traffic data for the purposes of traffic flow management at the defined segments of the road network.
- Delivering real-time traffic information about traffic flow density at the monitored sites.
- Open application with an option to be supplemented with further components which will create the possibility to inform about arrival times, accident in the given segment etc.
- It is brand new innovative project based on well-founded results of many years' research.
- Improving police's work with mobile indicators. Police will have statistical data from measured sites available. Police will have an option to send road patrol to measured segment in case of increased speed of traffic flow.
- Gaining statistical data on traffic flow motion and composition, statistic data evaluation and archiving.
- Publishing of temporary results of statistic measurement on the site (information at the web portals, conferences, exhibitions).
Clients/users of the project: Above all, vulnerable road users (pedestrians, cyclists etc.) will benefit from the project's implementation. Bodies responsible for road traffic safety (respective regional Czech Police directorates, municipal police, municipal authorities, town halls, municipal councils, politicians, web portals, road management, BESIP, Department of transportation, Department of interior, ITIS, customs administration, insurance companies, research institutions, taxpayers).