Computer Vision and Imaging in Intelligent Transportation Systems

6Traffic Flow Analysis

Rodrigo Fernandez¹, Muhammad Haroon Yousaf², Timothy J. Ellis³, Zezhi Chen³ and Sergio A. Velastin⁴

¹ Universidad de los Andes, Santiago, Chile

² University of Engineering and Technology Taxila, Taxila, Pakistan

³ Kingston University, London, UK

⁴ Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

6.1 What is Traffic Flow Analysis?

6.1.1 Traffic Conflicts and Traffic Analysis

Traffic is the movement of people and goods in the public space. Some people can ride a car, a public transport vehicle, a bicycle, or travel on foot. This movement will generate interactions between people: in one moment two individuals who are circulating may coincide at the same point. These interactions give rise to the so‐called traffic conflicts [1].

Traffic conflict will occur when two or more people intend to use the same resource of the transport system simultaneously: a section of a road, an area within a junction, a space inside a public transport vehicle. Depending on how and why traffic conflicts occur, they can be classified into converging conflicts or directional conflicts. Converging conflicts take place in one portion of a road, traveling in the same direction but at different speeds. Directional conflicts occur in an intersection due to the various maneuvers made by vehicles.

Traffic flow can be studied from the point of view of traffic conflicts. Its study can be divided into two approaches. The simplest one is uninterrupted traffic flow analysis, which studies converging conflicts ...