Ground vibrations recorded by fiber-optic cables reveal traffic response to COVID-19 lockdown measures in Pasadena, California
Ground vibrations recorded by fiber-optic cables reveal traffic response to COVID-19 lockdown measures in Pasadena, California
复制标题
DOI：
10.1038/s43247-021-00234-3
复制
发表时间：
2021-08-11
影响因子：
7.9
通讯作者：
Karrenbach, Martin
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Wang, Xin;Zhan, Zhongwen;Karrenbach, Martin
新冠肺炎封锁对我们社会的动态产生了前所未有的影响。由于交通流量是社会活动的一个很好的代表，交通监控成为评估封锁影响的有用工具。在这里，我们将加利福尼亚州帕萨迪纳市两股未使用的电信光纤转化为类似于5000个传感器的地震阵列，并检测到电缆上方街道上车辆移动引起的地面振动。我们对2019年12月至2020年8月期间的车辆数量及其平均速度进行高时空分辨率监测，然后分析由于新冠肺炎封锁而导致的交通模式变化。我们的结果显示，由于封锁，全市的交通量下降，速度提高，尽管影响的程度因街道而异。本研究论证了通信光缆用于交通监控的可行性，对公众健康、经济和交通安全具有重要意义。
The COVID-19 lockdown has unprecedently affected the dynamics of our society. As traffic flow is a good proxy for societal activity, traffic monitoring becomes a useful tool to assess the lockdown's impacts. Here we turned two strands of unused telecommunication fibers in Pasadena, California into a seismic array of similar to 5,000 sensors and detected ground vibrations caused by moving vehicles along the streets above the cable. We monitor the number of vehicles and their mean speed between December 2019 and August 2020 in high spatial and temporal resolution, and then analyze the traffic patterns change due to the COVID-19 lockdown. Our results show a city-wide decline in traffic volume and an increase in speed due to the lockdown, although the level of impact varies substantially by streets. This study demonstrates the feasibility of using telecommunication fiber optic cables in traffic monitoring, which has implications for public health, economy, and transportation safety.