Vehicular traffic counts from wireless network protocols

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The ubiquitous nature of WiFi and Bluetooth equipped devices has made it opportunistic to scavenge information that can be repurposed for applications other than initially intended. One such opportunity is in vehicular traffic monitoring, whereby sampling of transceivers serve as proxies for vehicles and consequently for traffic density and flow. An advantage of this type of data, although still anonymous is that it is labelled. This Engage grant will explore a complete data collection system that utilizes a variety of wireless networking technologies and devices to collect inferred traffic data. The protocol and/or radio scans will be used to determine if it is technically possible to obtain a large enough sample size for accurate traffic counting purposes. Specifically, MORR Transportation Consulting Ltd. is interested in determining the applicability for intersection turning movement counts. For this Engage opportunity, a wireless sensor network of probes will be prototyped and deployed to collect network protocol and device information for this purpose. If practical, radio frequencies scanners will be incorporated to potentially also extract useful tertiary data. One of the challenges is creating probes that are easily setup and a have a long battery life, a rugged solar powered probe design will be investigated. Data from each probe will be transmitted to a central server over a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) cellular network. The server will parse the data received and store it in a database. The quality of the data will be compared with actual traffic counts.