SAFETY AND SECURITY

Keeping everyone safe, whether on busy city streets or highways, is no easy task. Sometimes sudden movements like an animal crossing, or a small child running, or a pedestrian crossing, can happen anytime. Bicycles and scooters present even more risks. Signs that warn of road hazards or crosswalks are helpful but limited. Today’s city and highway planners increasingly turn to intelligent transportation systems (ITS) and other smart city technologies to address these challenges.

Monitoring systems with IP cameras and AI analytics can capture real-time data showing movement on roadways to trigger actions for safety purposes. One solution—SecurOS^® Soffit from Intelligent Security Systems (ISS), a developer of video intelligence and data awarness solutions—essentially escorts pedestrians by illuminating each crossing section and alerting motorists in plenty of time to prevent an accident.

“Cities continue to rapidly evolve and shape around a multimodal environment,” says Joe Harvey, Intelligent Transportation Systems Market Sector Leader for ISS. “There are so many modes of transportation on our roadways—pedestrians, cyclists, buses, trucks, cars, and more.”

The solution uses new or existing security cameras to capture images, video analytics to process the images, and dynamic LED modules to act on the images by casting light on crosswalks. Harvey calls it a high-tech improvement on road signage. Unlike signs, he notes, it doesn’t require drivers to take their eyes off the road.

The solution also has a long-term purpose: With its monitoring and AI analytics capabilities, SecurOS^® Soffit allows cities to capture data to make long-term safety improvements such as optimizing traffic patterns and roadway designs. The company has a long history of analyzing video data and streams—developing experience and expertise in deploying video analytics since 1996. This expertise is what keeps ISS ahead of the competition by deploying the latest AI and computer vision technology.

Ultimately, the goal of deploying a system such as the Soffit is to reduce roadway incidents and eliminate traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while promoting safe mobility.

Monitoring systems with IP cameras and #AI analytics can capture real-time #data showing movement on roadways to trigger actions for safety purposes. @Isscctv via @insightdottech

The Technology Behind Intelligent Transportation Systems

Soffit leverages IP cameras strategically positioned at crosswalks. The cameras transmit video data to an analytics controller, which activates an LED lighting module when pedestrians enter a crosswalk. “The driver is alerted to where the pedestrians are, and as they travel throughout that entire crossing,” Harvey says. When pedestrians clear the crosswalk, the lights return to a regular static mode.

The solution captures different types of vehicles moving at different speeds. This is important because a bicycle at a stoplight takes more time to clear an intersection than a car. Soffit can make the necessary adjustment, allowing the cyclist more time to cross, much the same way that pedestrian buttons at conventional stoplights extend crossing times.

In time, as connected vehicle systems gain functionality, automobiles will start receiving data from systems such as Soffit so they can autonomously adjust to intersection and road conditions, Harvey says, adding, “This will continually push the industry into instantaneous real-time decision-making.”

ISS leverages Intel technology for the monitoring and analytics solution. As Intel launches next-generation processor technology, companies like ISS gain advantage with enhanced functionality and scalability. For instance, the company’s access to the latest Intel^® Core^™ Ultra processors provided the ability to test and build the latest technology into SecurOS solutions—providing customers the benefits of next-generation technology right away with more power and performance. “With the Intel Core Ultra processor and its built-in AI acceleration, we saw an enhancement of 75% and 100% in video analytic workload over the previous generation.”

ITS Offers Safety for Multple Use Cases

ISS has deployed Soffit in various settings. One of the largest is in Mexico City, where the solution processes images from 65,000 smart city cameras. City authorities use the images for a range of use cases, making on-the-spot decisions such as rerouting traffic when needed and deploying assets to assist disabled vehicles.

At a university in Florida, Soffit helps keep students safe as they move around the campus. Every hour or two there may be thousands of people leaving classrooms, going to cars, walking back to the dorms, and other destinations. The system collects and analyzes data from these areas where cars and pedestrians share busy roadways to provide insights on how to adjust traffic patterns and crossings to prevent accidents.

Soffit is also in use at an auto manufacturer’s campus that changed pedestrian crossings for workers exiting a building. That change created a hazard because drivers weren’t used to the new pattern. Now, with dynamic illumination in place, “you can see across a large area where these people are coming from and where they’re headed to,” Harvey says.

Looking ahead, Harvey envisions many more uses for the technology. As camera deployments continue to increase, no human can possibly keep an eye on all captured video, so AI will play an essential role, providing insights that trigger immediate action when needed and long-term wisdom to ultimately enhance and protect life in a connected world.
 

This article was edited by Georganne Benesch, Editorial Director for insight.tech.