A Wireless Sensor Network with Accurate Time Synchronization and Wide Area Coverage for Traffic Signal Timing Analysis

Improved traffic signal timing and traffic incident response are two of the most cost-effective ways of reducing urban arterial network congestion. System-wide analysis of its cause is required to mitigate congestion or excessive traffic delay. Network wide, synchronized and real-time traffic flow data, and Signal Phase and Timing (SPaT) data are indispensable for effectively adjusting traffic signal timing and coordination in the traffic network. Signal timing adjustment at individual intersections alone without coordination with other intersections may cause unanticipated consequences at other locations. We propose to develop and test an automated, real-time traffic data collection, visualization and management tool. The tool is built on a state-of-the-art wireless communication and sensor network, and collect wide-area, synchronized, and time-stamped traffic detector and signal phase/status data. Real-time traffic movement visualization software will also be developed and validated, and the overall data will be saved to a versatile database for post processing and management. With proper data aggregation and format conversion to Universal Traffic Data Format (UTDF), the collected traffic data can be fed automatically to a 3rd party software tool such as Synchro for signal timing analysis and optimization.