Automatic Traffic Density Estimation and Vehicle Classification for Traffic Surveillance Systems Using Neural Networks

It is important to know the road traffic density real time especially in mega cities for signal control and effective traffic management. In recent years, video monitoring and surveillance systems have been widely used in traffic management. Hence, traffic density estimation and vehicle classification can be achieved using video monitoring systems. In most vehicle detection methods in the literature, only the detection of vehicles in frames of the given video is emphesized. However, further analysis is needed in order to obtain the useful information for traffic management such as real time traffic density and number of vehicle types passing these roads. This paper presents vehicle classification and traffic density calculation methods using neural networks. The paper also reports results from real traffic videos obtained from Istanbul Traffic Management Company (ISBAK).