Detection of traffic operation evaluation parameters based on video at urban signalized intersections

Intersection traffic operation evaluation parameters, such as queue length, delay, are difficult to be detected directly. A method is presented to synthetically detect intersection operation evaluation parameters based on video processing. First, the queue vehicles are quickly detected by introducing selective background update mechanism for block-level background subtraction combined with block-level frame difference. Then, the first and the last queue vehicles position can be determined by using virtual parallel line, and the number of vehicles queuing can be detected by combining the first and the last queue vehicles tracking with the virtual loop count near the stop line, as a result, other traffic operation evaluation parameters, such as delay, stop times, also can be gained. The test result indicates that the method can effectively detect multiple parameters simultaneously, also can effectively improve detection accuracy rate. Compared with the actual value, the mean error of measured parameters value is less than 5% which can better meet the need of intersection operating performance evaluation. © 2015, Science Press. All right reserved.