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

Increasing population, vehicles, and the excessive traffic induced by urban sprawl is overburdening the existing highway system. Traffic delays and air pollution are often caused by ineffective traffic signal timing. Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) are adopted to better manage and control the surface transportation network in many cities. However, there is lack of an independent signal analysis tool that can be quickly implemented on the street and diagnose whether there is signal control issues from a system-wise data collection. We propose to develop a wireless sensor network based on traffic signal analysis tool, which utilizes the state-of-the-art traffic sensors, in forming a reconfigurable network, to collect system-wide traffic condition data. A knowledge-based signal analysis expert system will also be developed to automatically diagnose/detect signal phase/timing issues. The envisioned system will be very helpful for traffic engineers and transportation agencies for optimize/resolve traffic issues of suboptimal signal control.