Bangkok Traffic Monitoring System

Traffic data is essential for determining better traffic management and providing valuable information to drivers. Especially to tackle traffic congestion, traffic data is needed to understand traffic patterns, and to come up with proper solutions for congestion alleviation. In Bangkok, many authorities are involved with the management of traffic, and in recent years, Royal Thai Police has installed a comprehensive image processing detector system throughout Bangkok, in order to monitor traffic. This paper describes Bangkok traffic monitoring system of Royal Thai Police. The system consists of 152 image processing cameras installed at 45 intersections and central unit at a traffic control center. The detectors are capable of providing traffic volume, speed, queue length, and traffic image. All the cameras are linked to the Central Traffic Control and Command center, where the data are stored and made available to operators and commanders. A set of traffic data from the system was analyzed to display the traffic patterns in Bangkok. The system could provide the knowledge of traffic both in details (lane-by-lane, by intersection) or by aggregate (general traffic patterns). The analyses demonstrate that the information from Bangkok traffic monitoring system in useful for both planning and operation. Some ideas on future work are also presented.