Intelligent Transportation Systems

Did you know that cars pollute the most while sitting idle at intersections waiting for the light to change?



Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) refers to all of the efforts made to the transportation infrastructure. This includes systems that monitor traffic to control the street signals, internal and car-to-car communications, car navigation systems, collision avoidance, crash detection, electronic speed limit signs, speed and red light cameras and other innovative systems to ensure safe driving and keep pollution to a minimum.



Traffic congestion and the rise of new and better technology started the push for real-time control and more efficient traffic solutions.



Traffic control cameras were designed and built to eliminate the much more costly and unreliable induction loops. Induction loops are installed into the road itself and they detect the vehicle’s magnetic field as the vehicle passes over the loop. These systems are quite costly to install since they either have to be put in before asphalt is poured for a street or cut into existing asphalt. These systems are also vulnerable to extreme temperatures – both hot and cold – which can make them fail. Failure means the lights will not change when a vehicle pulls up to it.

Have you ever pulled up to a red light at two in the morning and no matter how long you sit there the light just will not change? That’s a loop failing to sense your car.

In order to overcome these types of problems, video cameras were created with specialized housings, lenses and software to measure traffic flow, automatic incident detection, license plate recognition, and other traffic related issues.

The video systems are totally non-intrusive as they do not require installing any equipment inside the roadbed; instead the cameras are generally mounted at the top of light-poles with the cables being run through existing paths in those poles.

Video from the camera is fed into processors that analyze certain characteristics of the video. They can be set up to detect lane-by-lane vehicle speeds, vehicle counts, lane occupancy, stopped vehicles, vehicles facing the wrong direction and so on. A single video detection processor can detect up to eight simultaneous feeds.



For over 20 years WTI has designed and manufactured innovative ITS systems – from the camera systems to wireless communication devices. For more information on our complete line of solutions check out our web site at www.gotowti.com.

~The WTI Team



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WTI (Wireless Technology, Inc.)

Video Surveillance Products Dedicated to the Broadcast, Global Security and Transportation Markets!

www.gotowti.com ● www.wirelesstech.com

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Oh, The Pressure!

With today’s video technologies continuing to rise in complexity and cost, the pressure of making the right decision… well… The “pressure” here is not the pressure of decision, it is the decision of pressure.

Decision: A pressurized outdoor camera or a sealed outdoor camera (non-pressurized)?

Why have pressurized cameras?

Typically, the location of the camera will be in an area that is known to have some type of air-borne contaminants that could damage the internals of the camera. Contaminants can be anything from oil, water, or any particulate matter from manmade or natural occurrence. The thought here is that if the camera is internally pressurized above ambient pressure, these contaminants will be prevented from entering.

The core purpose of pressurization in an outdoor camera is to “ensure that no water, moisture or dust is able to enter the camera enclosure and cause premature failure of the electrical, mechanical or optical components.”

The above quote was taken from a previous blog entitled “Dry As A Bone” in describing the challenge of building an outdoor camera; to read the entire article click on the link below:

http://gotowti.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/09/something-sidewinder-related.html.

The manner in which the seals are created for the Sidewinder P/T/Z camera is the same manner in which the seals are created for the all fixed cameras manufactured by WTI. A sealed outdoor camera (from WTI) meets the same core purpose as that of a pressurized camera; contaminants are prevented from entry.

Consider the maintenance cost reduction benefit of a sealed camera: no pressure checks! (Also, no alarm conditions when internal camera pressure drops)

Consider the installation site. Underwater (sea floor monitoring) or extreme altitudes (weather balloon) will indeed require some type of pressurized camera enclosure. Highways, intersections, utility infrastructure sites, building perimeter, etc… Why have pressurized cameras?

~David Scales, C.T.O.

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WTI (Wireless Technology, Inc.)

Video Surveillance Products Dedicated to the Broadcast, Global Security and Transportation Markets!

www.gotowti.com ● www.wirelesstech.com

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