IRIS
Intelligent Roadway Information System
Vehicle Detection Systems
There are several types of vehicle detection systems (VDS). The earliest of these is the inductive loop, which is a wire looped under the road surface. Some systems use radar mounted on the side of the road. Video detection uses a camera and computer vision software. Collectively, these systems are simply called detectors.
Configuration
To create a detector, first select the r_node at the proper location. Then select the Detectors tab for that r_node. Enter the detector Name and press the Create button.
After selecting a detector in the r_node detector table, its properties, such as lane type and lane # can be changed. Lanes are numbered from right-to-left, starting with the right lane as 1. A label will be created from this information, including abbreviations of the roads associated with the r_node.
The field length of a detector determines how density and speed are estimated from counts and occupancy. It is in units of feet.
If a detector is no longer used, it can be marked abandoned.
Lane Type
Lane Type | Description |
---|---|
Mainline | Freeway mainline |
Auxiliary | Mainline auxiliary (ends within a mile) |
CD Lane | Collector / Distributor |
Reversible | Reversible mainline |
Merge | Freeway on-ramp (counts all merging traffic) |
Queue | Ramp metering queue |
Exit | Freeway exit-ramp |
Bypass | Ramp meter bypass |
Passage | Ramp meter passage |
Velocity | Mainine speed loop |
Omnibus | Bus only |
Green | Ramp meter displayed green count |
Wrong Way | Exit-ramp wrong way detector |
HOV | High occupancy vehicles only |
HOT | High occupancy or tolling only |
Shoulder | Mainline shoulder |
Parking | Parking space presence detector |
Transfer
It is possible to move a detector to another r_node. Select the target r_node and enter the detector Name. The current label for that detector will appear on the right. To move it to the current r_node, press the Transfer button.
Traffic Data
Most detectors sample traffic data in fixed time intervals and put it into bins. IRIS can store these types of binned traffic data:
Sample Type | Description | Code | Sample Size |
---|---|---|---|
Vehicle Count | Count of vehicles detected | v | 8 bits |
Motorcycle Count | Count of vehicles up to 7 feet | vmc | 8 bits |
Small Count | Count of vehicles between 7 and 20 feet | vs | 8 bits |
Medium Count | Count of vehicles between 20 and 43 feet | vm | 8 bits |
Large Count | Number of vehicles 43 feet or longer | vl | 8 bits |
Occupancy | Percent occupancy count (0 to 100.00) | op | 16 bits |
Scans | Scan occupancy count (0 to 1800) | c | 16 bits |
Speed | Average speed (mph) of detected vehicles | s | 8 bits |
Instead of binning, some detectors can record a vehicle log, with information about each detected vehicle, such as headway and speed.
Every 30 seconds, an XML file is generated containing the most recent sample
data from all defined detectors. The file is called det_sample.xml.gz
, and it
is written to the XML output directory.
Detector Protocols
IRIS supports several different protocols for communicating with vehicle detection systems. The protocol used depends on the comm link of the controller to which it is assigned. The following table summarizes features of each protocol.
Protocol | Binning | Traffic Data |
---|---|---|
NTCIP | 0-255 seconds | Count, Occupancy |
MnDOT-170 | 30 seconds | Count, Scans |
SS105 | 5 seconds to 1 month | Count, Occupancy, Speed, Classification |
SS125 | 5 seconds to 1 month | Count, Occupancy, Speed, Classification |
G4 | 5 seconds to 1 hour | Count, Occupancy, Speed, Classification |
Canoga | N/A vehicle logging | Timestamp, Speed (double loops) |
DR-500 | 30-300? seconds | Speed |
DXM | N/A (presence) | Magnetic Field |
For protocols which allow the binning intereval to be adjusted, it will be set to the poll period of the comm link.
Auto Fail
Traffic data is continuously checked for five common failure conditions. When
one of these first occurs and every hour that it persists, an event is logged in
the detector_event
database table. The detector_auto_fail_view
can be used
to check recent events.
If the detector_auto_fail_enable
system attribute is true
, the auto
fail flag for each detector will be set and cleared automatically whenever
these conditions change.
No Hits
This failure condition occurs if no vehicles are counted for a duration determined by the lane type. It clears immediately when a vehicle is counted.
Lane Types | Duration |
---|---|
Mainline, CD Lane, Velocity | 4 hours |
Exit, Wrong Way, HOV | 8 hours |
Queue, Passage, Merge | 12 hours |
Auxiliary | 24 hours |
Bypass, Green, Omnibus, HOT, Reversible, Shoulder | 72 hours |
Parking | 2 weeks |
Chatter
If a detector reports an unreasonably high count of 38 vehicles or more in a 30 second period, this condition will be triggered. It will be cleared if 24 hours pass with all counts below that threshold.
Locked On
This condition occurs if the detector reports 100% occupancy for a duration determined by lane type. It is also sustained if the occupancy drops to zero with no intervening values. The condition will be cleared after 24 hours of good occupancy data.
Lane Type | Duration |
---|---|
Mainline, Auxiliary, CD Lane, Reversible, Velocity, HOV, HOT, Shoulder | 2 minutes |
Merge, Queue, Exit, Bypass, Passage, Omnibus, Green, Wrong Way | 30 minutes |
Parking | 2 weeks |
No Change
If occupancy is greater than zero and does not change for 24 hours, this condition will be triggered. It will clear immediately if the occupancy changes.
Occ Spike
A spike timer is kept for each detector. For every 25% change in occupancy between two consecutive data samples, 30 seconds are added to the timer. If its value ever exceeds 60 seconds, the condidtion is triggered. After every poll, 30 seconds are removed from the timer. The condition will be cleared after 24 hours of no spikes.
Force Fail
If a detector has a fault which is not handled automatically, it can be force failed. This flag is only set manually, so it must be cleared once the failure is corrected.
Fake Detectors
When a detector is failed (auto fail or force fail), its data will not be used for travel time, ramp metering, etc. In that case, fake detection can be used — this field can contain one or more other detector names, separated by spaces. The average density or speed of those detectors (which are not also failed) will be used instead.
Traffic Data Archiving
Sample data is archived only if the sample_archive_enable
system attribute
is true
. Files are stored in /var/lib/iris/traffic
, in a directory with the
district name. Within that directory a new subdirectory is created for each
year, with a 4-digit name (1994
-9999
).
As data is collected, a new subdirectory is created every day — the name is
8-digits: year 1994
-9999
, month 01
-12
and day-of-month 01
-31
.
At 10 PM, all traffic data from the previous day is moved into a single ZIP file
with the 8-digit base name and a .traffic
extension.
Binned Data
A binned sample file consists of some number of periods of equal duration. The first period begins (and the last period ends) at midnight. The binning interval determines the number of samples collected per day — a shorter interval results in more samples. If the period is longer than 30 seconds, the samples are allocated evenly into 30-second bins for storage.
Period | Binning Interval | Samples | Stored Bins |
---|---|---|---|
5 | 5 seconds | 17280 | 5 seconds |
6 | 6 seconds | 14400 | 6 seconds |
10 | 10 seconds | 8640 | 10 seconds |
15 | 15 seconds | 5760 | 15 seconds |
20 | 20 seconds | 4320 | 20 seconds |
30 | 30 seconds | 2880 | 30 seconds |
60 | 60 seconds | 1440 | 30 seconds |
90 | 90 seconds | 960 | 30 seconds |
120 | 2 minutes | 720 | 30 seconds |
240 | 4 minutes | 360 | 30 seconds |
300 | 5 minutes | 288 | 30 seconds |
600 | 10 minutes | 144 | 30 seconds |
900 | 15 minutes | 96 | 30 seconds |
1200 | 20 minutes | 72 | 30 seconds |
1800 | 30 minutes | 48 | 30 seconds |
3600 | 60 minutes | 24 | 30 seconds |
7200 | 2 hours | 12 | 30 seconds |
14400 | 4 hours | 6 | 30 seconds |
28800 | 8 hours | 3 | 30 seconds |
43200 | 12 hours | 2 | 30 seconds |
86400 | 24 hours | 1 | 30 seconds |
For each detector, a binned sample file is created for each
traffic data sample type. The base file name is the
detector name. The extension is the traffic data code followed by the
period (in seconds). For example, 60-second vehicle count samples collected
from detector 100 would be stored in a file called 100.v60
, containing 2880
bins.
Each data sample is either an 8- or 16-bit signed integer, depending on the sample type. 16-bit samples are in high-byte first order. A negative value (-1) indicates a missing sample. Any data outside the valid ranges should be considered bad.
Vehicle Logging
The .vlog
format is a comma-separated text log with one line for each vehicle
detected. Each line ends with a newline \n
(ASCII 0x0A). If present,
duration, headway, and speed are positive integer values. Missing
duration or headway values are represented by a ?
character. A gap in
sampling data is represented by *
on a line by itself.
Column | Name | Description |
---|---|---|
1 | Duration | Number of milliseconds the vehicle occupied the detector |
2 | Headway | Number of milliseconds bewteen vehicle start times |
3 | Time stamp | 24-hour HH:MM:SS format (may be omitted if headway is valid) |
4 | Speed | Speed in miles per hour (if available) |
Example Log
Interpreting example .vlog
data for 11 vehicles:
Log Data | Duration | Headway | Time | Speed |
---|---|---|---|---|
296,9930,17:49:36 |
296 | 9930 | 17:49:36 | ? |
231,14069 |
231 | 14069 | 17:49:50 | ? |
240,453,,45 |
240 | 453 | 17:49:50 | 45 |
296,23510,,53 |
296 | 23510 | 17:50:14 | 53 |
259,1321 |
259 | 1321 | 17:50:15 | ? |
?,? |
? | ? | ? | ? |
249,? |
249 | ? | 17:50:24 | ? |
323,4638,17:50:28 |
323 | 4638 | 17:50:28 | ? |
258,5967 |
258 | 5967 | 17:50:33 | ? |
111,1542 |
111 | 1542 | 17:50:35 | ? |
304,12029 |
304 | 12029 | 17:50:47 | ? |
Traffic Layer
The IRIS client user interface includes a traffic map layer which is created automatically from the road topology. By default, this layer uses traffic density to determine the color of each segment. Other themes are available for speed and flow. The Legend menu at the top of the map can be used to view the thresholds used for each color in a theme.
Every 30 seconds, the client will make an HTTP request for the current
traffic data. The URL to locate that file is declared as a
property in the /etc/iris/iris-client.properties
file (on the IRIS server).
The property is tdxml.detector.url
, and it should point to the
det_sample.xml.gz
XML file, as made available by nginx on the IRIS server.
The appearance of the traffic map layer changes depending on the current zoom level. If the zoom level is below 10, the layer will not be visible. At zoom levels 10 through 13, the layer will display segments as aggregate of all detectors in each mainline station. At zoom level 14 or above, each mainline detector will be displayed as a separate segment.
The maximum distance between adjacent stations to draw segments on the map is
specified by the map_segment_max_meters
system attribute. It is also the
maximum downstream distance for associating station data with a segment.