Overview
The problem of safety in transport is especially acute in the case of road networks. To confront this, the EC has proposed to reduce the number of road fatalities by 50% by 2010. Nowadays, safety relies most of the time on autonomous or stand-alone systems, which offer, without any doubt, room for some improvements.
In order to overcome the visible limitations of those systems, there is a need for another solution: Co-operative Transport Systems (CTS), whose intelligence is distributed/shared between road infrastructure and vehicles, compromising innovative approaches on transport safety and efficiency.
TRACKSS had one strategic goal:
- Developing new systems for cooperative sensing and predicting flow, infrastructure and environmental conditions surrounding traffic, with a view to improve road transport operations safety and efficiency.
This strategic goal was achieved by means of a number of specific objectives, namely:
- The development and/or improvement of a number of breakthrough sensing technologies.
- The design and integration of knowledge sharing capabilities into a sensor network, giving optimal integration into the Cooperative Transport Systems.
- Enabling the modular integration of the sensors developed by the project into the Cooperative Transport Systems architecture.
- Making use of the most advanced data fusion and integration techniques in order to get as much information as possible from the data collected.
- Developing a knowledge based DSS (Decision Support System) to assess and predict the ambient conditions affecting the safety and efficiency of transport.
- Last, but not least, validating the project results by means of three validation scenarios:
- Test Track: the project developments will be validated in a controlled environment.
- Crossing: the project developments will be validated in a real intersection.
- Network: the project developments will be validated in a section of a real network.
The TRACKSS work plan was structured into nine work packages (WPs):
- WP1: Requirements Assessment;
- WP2: Operation Framework and IOP;
- WP3: Knowledge Sharing Sensors in Infrastructure;
- WP4: Knowledge Sharing Sensors in Vehicles;
- WP5: Data Fusion and Networked Intelligence
- WP6: Validation Sensors;
- WP7: Evaluation;
- WP8: Dissemination and Exploitation;
- WP9: Project Coordination.
Funding
Results
TRACKSS developed:
- In-vehicle sensors: advanced ice detection, high-dynamic high-resolution CMOS camera with sub-windowing technique, mmWave pedestrian detectors.
- infrastructure sensing technologies, improved loops, laser scanners, smart video cameras, smart dust or remote sensing.
TRACKSS integrated into these sensors knowledge sharing capabilities to enable their optimal integration into the Cooperative Transport Systems environment.
TRACKSS implemented a number of tools – including a Data Fusion Module, a Decision Support System, etc.- to enable the management and operational exploitation of cooperative sensors.
TRACKSS validated its results in three scenarios with different characteristics and levels of complexity: a closed test track, a crossing section and an urban network.
Technical Implications
TRACKSS...
- pushed forward the state of the art in infrastructure and in-vehicle sensing technologies for more safety and efficiency in road transport, improving their performance and cost-efficiency;
- implemented advanced knowledge sharing capabilities in infrastructure and in-vehicle sensors, making them cooperative entities;
- enabled improved situation awareness for all key players – humans and systems- involved in transport
- paved the way to a new generation of Cooperative Transport Systems.