Development and Field Evaluation of a Prototype Tool to Detect and Identify Left Turning Vehicles
Researcher(s)
Principal investigator: Neal Hawkins, 515-294-2744, hawkins@iastate.edu (project list)
Co-principal investigators:
- Omar Smadi, 515-294-7110, smadi@iastate.edu (project list)
- Shashi Nambisan, 515-294-5209, shashi@iastate.edu (project list)
Project status
In progress
Start date: 03/15/09
End date: 09/30/10
Sponsor(s)/partner(s)
Sponsor(s):Iowa Department of Transportation
About the research
Research objective: This project is a follow-up to CTRE's study "Best Practices and Recommended Strategies for Shared Left Turn Lanes at Traffic Signal Controlled Approaches." This project will work with the traffic signal industry to evaluate the possibility and utility of using video detection to help detect left turn vehicles where no left turn lane exists. This could benefit safety in that cities could modify signal operations to give exlusive left turn indications when needed.
This project proposes to build an analog video feed input, analyze a specified region to identify a vehicle with an activated left turn signal, and provide that information through a contact closure interface.