Project: #76 Using municipal vehicles as sensor platforms to monitor the health and performance of the traffic control system Progress Report - Reporting Period Ending: Sept. 30, 2020 Principal Investigator: Benjamin Coifman Status: Overdue Project Start Date: Nov. 30, 2016 End Date: July 20, 2020 Research Type: Applied Grant Type: Research Grant Program: FAST Act - Mobility National (2016 - 2022) Grant Cycle: Mobility21 - The Ohio State University Progress Report (Last Updated: Oct. 5, 2020, 6:35 a.m.) % Project Completed to Date: 90 % Grant Award Expended: 90 % Match Expended & Document: 95 USDOT Requirements Accomplishments Goals and Objectives • Develop, demonstrate, and evaluate a method to determine traffic volumes in urban areas from video sensors mounted on transit buses in operational service • Motivate practical use of the method Accomplishments • First-year graduate students continued to learn the methodologies underlying volume estimation from bus-based video data • One additional graduate student and one additional undergraduate student were trained in steps to extract video data for traffic volume estimation and proceeded to operational data extraction • Twenty-four hours of road tube data on eight roadway segment-directions were obtained • Approximately 68 hours of additional bus-based video imagery extracted data were obtained on 6 different bus routes for empirical volume estimation; approximately 53% of the video imagery (measured in hours of video) were preprocessed and post-processed into 1641 segment-direction-hours of traffic volumes • Road tube data were obtained and processed into traffic volumes for 12 hours each on eight of the segment-hour-directions for which volumes were estimated using the newly acquired video data • 98 hours of manually collected traffic volumes were obtained for 34 of the segment-hour-directions for which volumes were estimated using the newly acquired video imagery • Hourly volume values were determined from the bus video imagery extracted data and from a combination of the road tube and manually collected data for 490 segment-hour-direction • Vehicle miles traveled (VMT) values during a 10-hour period over a roadway network of 7.86 direction-miles of roadway were determined separately from the hourly volumes derived from the bus video imagery extracted data and from the hourly volumes derived from the combination of road tube and manually collected data • Numerical comparisons were made between the hourly volume and 10-hour VMT values derived from the bus-based video and from the combined road tube and manually collected data • Discussions continued with investigators at Carnegie Mellon University and led to video imagery and data sharing and plans from continued collaboration Training and professional development • Two previously active graduate students, two previously active undergraduate students, one new graduate student, and one new undergraduate student were involved with video imagery data extraction and data processing • Two graduate students were involved with conceptual developments Dissemination • Investigators meet regularly with The Ohio State University Transportation and Traffic Management (TTM) administrators to update them on empirical results obtained; TTM provides the video imagery upon request of the investigators as a result of these meetings • Project progress was presented in a seminar including UTC partners. Plans for upcoming period • Continue to develop methodological understanding by first year graduate students • Continue processing and post-processing data already obtained for eventual empirical analysis • Continue to analyze results of post-processed data to support reasonableness of approach and to determine improved estimation techniques • Continue to meet with OSU Transportation and Traffic Management (TTM) leadership and staff to discuss future data sharing and traffic estimation • Continue to share video imagery and data with Carnegie Mellon University investigators. Impacts • Our regular meetings with The Ohio State University (OSU) Transportation and Traffic Management (TTM) office have generated interest in the empirical traffic flow estimates we have produced and will continue to produce on campus and in supporting our research efforts for general urban applications. Other Physical collections: During the period, additional hours of additional video footage were collected from transit buses in regular service, 192 segment hours of road tube data, and a similar number of hours of manual traffic counts have been obtained have. Curricula: The approach being developed in this study has been presented as modules in two Civil Engineering class offerings with combined enrollment of 132. The approach and empirical data collected served as the basis of a class project for a mixed graduate/undergraduate Civil Engineering class of 32 students. Outcomes New Partners We continued to work closely with Transportation and Traffic Management (TTM) at The Ohio State University (OSU). TTM oversees all OSU transportation operations, other than parking, and operates the Campus Area Bus Service (CABS), with a fleet of almost fifty 40-foot transit buses serving close to 5 million passengers per year on fixed route scheduled services. We also coordinate field validation studies with the transportation division of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC), the greater Columbus area MPO. Issues None