Poor driving doesn’t just increase the risk of accident and injury – it also slows down traffic and increases delays for other motorists. To help local authorities to overcome these challenges, Hikvision has created its Traffic Violation Detection solution, which detects traffic and parking violations across the road network in real time and supports fast, automated incident responses and ticketing deterrents.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), traffic accidents kill approximately 1.35 million people a year and injure up to 50 million more. A large number of these accidents are preventable, caused by speeding drivers, or distracted drivers who are talking on their phones or texting on the road.
As well as causing accidents and near-misses, bad driving practices also increase traffic congestion, which is a major headache for motorists and local authorities. Common driving behaviors that typically impact traffic flow include illegal stopping or parking, incorrect use of priority lanes, illegal u-turns, and unnecessarily sharp braking at traffic lights and junctions.
To help make roads safer, and to keep traffic flowing, Hikvision has created a Traffic Violation Detection solution. This focuses on three key areas to ensure that motorists drive as safely as possible, and that any infractions are recorded and notified.
As an additional benefit, the Hikvision solution uses smart video to automate traffic and incident management. This not only speeds up response times compared to manual monitoring, but it also helps to save police time and free up forces to focus on major incidents.
Detecting speeding and other traffic violations at checkpoints
Using Hikvision cameras and velocity radars mounted on checkpoint ‘gantries’, traffic violations can be detected at key locations on the road network. In particular, the speed of vehicles can be verified – either using a location-based snapshot, or an average speed between two checkpoints (as shown in the images below).
Speed check method 1: Instantaneous speed detection: this uses a speed radar, a video camera, and a supplemental light to detect the speed of the vehicle as it passes the checkpoint.
Speed check method 2: A double-checkpoint segmentation system: this calculates the average speed of a vehicle travelling between two checkpoints or ‘gantries’.
In addition to speeding, Hikvision checkpoint cameras use deep learning technology to detect a number of additional traffic violations. For example, the cameras can determine if drivers are wearing their seatbelt. By recognizing license number plates, checkpoint cameras can also support local authorities to detect stolen vehicles, and check that only the right types of vehicles travel on highways and urban streets by recognizing vehicle attributes.
Preventing accidents and improving traffic flow at intersections
Traffic violations at intersections are not only dangerous for motorists, cyclists and pedestrians, but they can also slow down traffic and cause long delays. To address these challenges, the Hikvision Traffic Violation Detection solution monitors driving behaviour at intersections, helping to reduce the risk of accidents and speed up traffic flow.
Most traditional intersection monitoring solutions focus on vehicles that run red lights – cross referencing license plate information with traffic light status. Hikvision solution also does this, but it also integrates lane properties to detect and respond to misuse of lanes, illegal u-turns, wrong-way driving, and other incidents that can cause accidents and delays.
Improving safety and reducing congestion with illegal parking detection
Illegal parking has major consequences for road safety and traffic congestion. It can also be inconvenient or dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians who need to pass badly parked vehicles.
The Hikvision Traffic Violation Detection solution addresses these challenges with high-performance illegal parking detection cameras. Employed with Hikvision’s DarkFighter technology, the cameras provide up-to 4 megapixel video images, even in very low-light conditions. The cameras can reliably detect vehicles and capture their license plates when they enter into the pre-defined illegal parking zones, including those on highways and urban streets.
Hikvision illegal parking detection cameras can also be configured easily to implement rules that allow parking only during certain times of day, or for a limited time period. This makes the cameras suitable for town car parks, parking bays on high streets, airport pick-up bays, and other areas where motorists can only leave their vehicles for a short time.
Bringing it all together in a single-pane view
To maximize road safety and to help reduce traffic congestion, all elements of the Hikvision solution are integrated into a single, intelligent technology platform using HikCentral VMS. This brings cameras, velocity radars, servers, and control room infrastructure together to provide a real-time view of traffic incidents across the road network and to speed up response times dramatically.
With video data streamed into the platform in real time, authorities can view vehicles that violate traffic rules, and play back footage to verify what took place, and review traffic statistics at peak demand times. The HikCentral platform can also be integrated with third-party ‘ticketing’ systems that send automated fines and other penalties to vehicle owners via email, sms, or traditional mail.
