S. Cafiso

Road Traffic Conflict Analysis from Geo-referenced Stereo Sequences

In this paper an imaging system for road traffic conflict analysis is proposed. The system exploits geo-referenced stereo sequences and tracking procedure to compute traffic conflict measures which can be analysed by experts. Using the potentiality of the traffic conflict technique as a surrogate safety measure could constitute an effective tool in understanding how the driver interacts and adapts its behaviour with respect to the vehicle, the road characteristics, the traffic control devices and environment. Experiments performed on real data acquired in urban environment confirm the effectiveness of the system which makes simple and fast for the experts the understanding of the driver behaviour.

Vision based traffic conflict analysis

In this paper a vision based system for traffic conflict analysis is presented. The system employs geo-referenced stereo sequences and tracking procedure to provide much greater information regarding pre-crash and crash events than what is currently available. The exploitation of the traffic conflict technique potentiality as a surrogate safety measure could constitute an effective tool in understanding how the driver interacts and adapts its behavior with respect to the vehicle, the road characteristics, the traffic control devices and the environment. Experiments performed on real data acquired in urban context confirm the effectiveness of the system for the traffic conflicts measurement and the driver behavior analysis.

Risk Assessment On Railway TransportationOf Hazardous Materials

The transportation of hazardous materials involves a non-negligible quantity of goods carried by both road and rail. Moreover, considering today’s greater environmental awareness and the large anthroprical presence, the release of hazardous materials in an accident assumes an ever growing importance. For this reason a risk assessment, considered as the product of the probability of an incident occurring and the gravity of its consequences, is necessary. In the present work, a model to determine risk levels generated by an accident involving the transportation of hazardous materials by rail is presented. The accident risk assessment model takes into account the influence of (1) the main causes of defects (track structure, line characteristics, wagon characteristics, railway operation and traffic system), (2) the probability of a container breaking with the consequent release of dangerous substances during transport and (3) the number of people potentially exposed to the consequences of the accident. Finally, the presentation of a case study implemented using a Geographical Information System made it possible to highlight the potential and effectiveness of the proposed procedure. It is able to supply information and quantitative data which can be used to characterise improvement works and/or transportation procedures and routes in order to minimise the risks connected to the transportation of hazardous materials.

From manual to automatic pavement distress detection and classification

Detection and classification of distresses is a fundamental activity in the road pavement management. Even in the early stages of deterioration, road pavement needs to be monitored to identify problems, evaluating the actual conditions and predicting what the future conditions will be. Monitoring activities through manual/visual inspections are time consuming, costly and cause of safety concerns. For these reasons, distress identification is usually limited to few sections randomly selected. The introduction of new high efficiency equipment for distress detection and classification is opening new perspective in road pavement analysis and management. Automatic pavement monitoring and Mechanistic design are introducing new pavement performance indicators and criteria for distress classification. Previous studies show lack of correlations between indexes derived from manual and automatic pavement monitoring. Therefore, capability to derive manual distress parameters from automatic monitoring systems is of great interest in the definition and testing of criteria and methodological approaches. In this paper, a background is reported by referencing examples of North American and Italian tests for the detection and classification of distresses from manual survey and capabilities of the state-of-the-art Automatic Road Analyzer (ARAN 9000) as well. An infield experiment and calibration of a Probabilistic Neural Network Classifier is presented for deriving distress measures from automatic systems.

Stereo Vision for Bus Traffic Conflict Investigation

In this paper an imaging system for bus traffic conflict investigation is presented. The system employs geo-referenced stereo sequences and tracking procedure to provide much greater information regarding pre-crash and crash events than what is currently available. The exploitation of the traffic conflict technique potentiality as a surrogate safety measure could constitute an effective tool in understanding how the driver interacts and adapts its behavior with respect to the vehicle, the road characteristics, the traffic control devices and the environment. Experiments performed on real data acquired in urban context confirm the effectiveness of the system for the traffic conflicts measurement and the driver behavior analysis.