Spanish City counts Vehicles to improve Traffic Management System

The city of Vilanova i la Geltrú, in the province of Barcelona, is upgrading its traffic management system. They asked Urbionix to select and maintain a vehicle counting system, and Urbionix chose the video counting system from Retail Sensing.

Very sophisticated sensors capable of collecting data in real time, anonymously“
Urbionix on retail sensing

Urbionix’s mission is to improve the efficiency of cities by implementing technologies like the internet-of-things and Big Data. They decided on Retail Sensing for the “very sophisticated sensors capable of collecting data in real time, anonymously”. The system will enable decision-making based on reliable data.

Installing the vehicle sensors above a busy roundabout

The counting sensors are positioned 25 meters high and constantly count vehicles on roundabouts, both during the day and night. Part of the smart city, connected over the internet of things (IoT), the robust system works in all weathers.

Counting vehicles in the dark – on the inner ring are four vehicle sensors, one for each exit. Outside these is the energy-efficient lighting

Every 60 seconds the system receives the count of motorcycles, trucks and cars travelling round the high-traffic roundabout, and turning in each direction, in that minute. The data is anonymous and secure and helps keep the traffic moving.

In addition to the video counters, Urbionix installed a high efficiency LED lighting system, which used 55% less energy than the previous system.

The vehicle detection sensors only send the necessary data over the network – the counts per minute and whether the vehicle is a motorbike, car or truck – and not any of the video images. So all counts are anonymous.

The system sends data via the Sentilo internet-of-things platform. Sentilo collects information “generated by the city” from sensors across the Barcelona region and broadcasts it to the Smart City architecture.

For more on vehicle counting as part of a Smart City traffic management system, contact Retail Sensing. Call +44 (0)161 839 6437 or email sales@retailsensing.com.

David Collins

With over 12 years experience of video analytics and computer vision, David Collins' expertise covers AI-powered people and vehicle counting systems & software, and their associated applications. His specialities include neural networks and machine learning.