Video-based system development for automatic traffic monitoring

Traffic jam poses a serious problem because it creates distress and causes inefficiency of fuel consumption. Part of the solution to this problem is a system that can automatically detect the traffic congestion level in a road segment. This paper reports our work on developing such a system. It assumes a fixed camera is attached on high location, enabling it to monitor traffic flow in a specified road segment. The frame of video stream is analyzed by estimating the traffic density and traffic speed from the moving vehicles. The combination of traffic density and traffic speed is used for classifying the traffic congestion level, either belonging to free flow, slow moving or congestion category. Our evaluation using two traffic videos reveal a high accuracy of traffic congestion level prediction.