Photo and video recording cameras

Photo and video recording of traffic violations systems are complex technical devices that process video data from one or more video cameras included in the system, recognize certain objects and events in the cameras' view, save these events in the device memory and transfer the accumulated data to a centralized storage via wired and wireless communication channels.

In modern megalopolises, overloaded with transport, the use of photo and video recording systems is absolutely necessary. Those systems are becoming an integral part of the city intelligent transport system. Such an integrated approach to the organization of traffic allows you to harmonize the speed of traffic flows and get rid of dead congestion on some sections of the road.

Monitoring compliance with the Traffic Regulations automatically disciplines drivers, stabilizes the speed limit in free areas, improves adherence to traffic lanes, forces drivers to provide the pedestrians with the advantage of the "zebra" crossing, controls sticking to crossing intersections at a permitting traffic light, and the absence of stops at waffle markings. All these factors lead to a significant reduction in the number of serious accidents, saving drivers, passengers and pedestrians from road accidents with serious injury or death.

More than 200 modern photo and video recording of traffic violations "FORSAGE" systems have been installed on the territory of Moscow.

Each complex "FORSAGE" performs online processing of digital video images, which are formed from 1 to 4 video cameras, each of which "sees" up to 4 traffic lanes in the frame. All complexes are connected into a single network infrastructure, which allows them to exchange the necessary information both with each other (within the same intersection) and with central servers that process information materials and transfer them to the ITS databases.

In the view of any of its cameras "FASTAGE" registers:

• Moving objects (pedestrian, car, motorcycle, bikes, bicycle, baby carriages, person on a skateboard, electric unicycle, etc.);
• State lisence plates of vehicles, both moving and stationary (parked vehicles);
• Fixed objects of road infrastructure (traffic lights, markings, signs, boards).

Also "FORCAGE" measures the speed of traffic, the distance between objects and the precise time of a given event with an accuracy of 1 millisecond.

All state lisence plates that are registered by any of the cameras of the FORSAGE system are immediately sent to the ITS database to generate online statistics of transport passages by road sections. Basing on this data, the traffic situation simulation algorithm will calculate optimal durations of traffic light cycles and switching times reverse strips.

If Forsage has registered a traffic violation by one or more road users, then information about this accident will be transmitted to the ITS server for further consideration by preprocessing operators and traffic police inspectors. The state of the rest of the recognized road infrastructure objects is also included in the ITS database with a certain frequency to control the correct operation of traffic lights, the serviceability of the scoreboard, an inventory of road signs and signs, and an assessment of the degree of residual visibility of road marking lines.

Implementing photo and video recording of traffic violation systems in big cities and all around the world shows the following results:

• Planned reduction of most types (compositions) of offenses on the roads;
• A sharp decrease in the number of fatal accidents;
• Traffic experts (GIBDD) receive a powerful and convenient tool for analyzing statistics on the congestion of road sections, accidents and the number of traffic violations in conjunction with each other. This allows experts to formulate recommendations and prescriptions for the construction and modernization of the complex road network of a metropolis, based on an accurate forecast of the development of the situation.

In this context, Moscow is a typical metropolis in which further development of the transport management system is required. The ITS, which has been operating in Moscow for more than 10 years, has made it possible to unambiguously confirm the correctness of statistical calculations and the correctness of the chosen direction of development. The statistics of registered traffic violations in Moscow has been steadily decreasing over the past 5 years, despite the increase in the number of cars owned by citizens and the installed PVRS complexes on the roads.

Factors of successful implementation and functioning of PVRS as a part of ITS:

1. The initial address list of the PVRS installation and subsequent recommendations for moving the systems to new locations are formed by the traffic police experts on the basis of the statistics on the congestion of road sections and their accident rates, obtained from the ITS database throughout the entire service life of the systems, taking into account the "addiction factor" and the planned reducing the number of accidents;
2. Organization of multi-phased processing of information on traffic violations:
• automatic fixation of violations in the PVRS by intelligent algorithms based on machine learning;
• additional automatic quality control of materials of the evidence base on the ITS central servers;
• visual automated expert control of preliminary data processing on traffic violations;
• final control of the materials of the evidence base and the final decision on the issuance of a decision on an administrative offense by the inspector of the automated recording center of the traffic police;
3. Maintaining information archives for the entire history of ITS operation with the ability to generate analytics by any parameters for any period;
4. High-quality operation of PVRS technical means and timely support for ITS users, leading to minimization (up to several hours) of interruptions in the operation of systems, and minimization (to zero due to redundancy) of downtime of ITS server capacities;
5. Conducting scientific and technical councils, which discuss the current technical shortcomings and outline ways to eliminate them in future generations of products and in new versions of software.

Over the last few years, a significant leap has been made in ITS construction in Moscow, but the use of the FORSAGE system as an integral part of ITS to control the traffic situation will make it possible to achieve even more noticeable results in Moscow transport management in Moscow on the level comparable with the most progressive cities in the world.