THESSALONIKI SITE

Traffic monitoring is based on video cameras installed along the freeway network connected by fiber optics cables to the video image processing equipment (AUTOSCOPE), which is located at the traffic control center. The number of the virtual detectors used for the identification of the incidents is equal to four times the number of cameras, i.e. each camera is associated to two traffic detectors (one per direction of travel) and two incident detectors (one per direction of travel). The first two detectors transmit traffic data to the ERMIS main database, which are further processed using the two-station incident detection algorithms. The other two detectors place directly detected incidents by the one-station detectors of AUTOSCOPE in the main database.

For the facilitation of all operations taking place in ERMIS, special applications were developed, in order to integrate external data collection sources, and to connect the participating actors in order to enable on-line data exchange. These applications, which are of relevance to the PRIME project are:

• A verification user interface (VUI) operating at the traffic control centre. The VUI receives data from the incident verification system, and is also used for manual incident entry by the operator, who either receives calls from the public and relevant authorities, or observes incident occurrences on the monitors installed at the traffic control centre

• A communications system developed for the automatic notification of the ERMIS response actors. This interface connects the traffic control centre to the control centres of the response actors, in case of an incident occurrence. Once an incident is verified by the operator at the traffic control centre, a message is sent to response actors, and all incident related data are inserted into their system's database.