RTMS echo radars’ role in intersection safety project

First published in Intertraffic Innovation News - July 2, 2020

Image Sensing Systems (ISS) has revealed details of a recent deployment of its RTMS Echo radars in making safety improvements at intersections.

A community in the state of Minnesota started receiving complaints from citizens about the dangers of making left-hand turns from residential roadways onto high-speed arterials. County officials needed insight about the safety risk at these locations, beyond accident records, to determine if the conditions posed a significant safety concern for the citizens. They were unable to gather the necessary data in the time frame required using their traditional data collection techniques so they turned to a new technology to aid in data collection.

The county designed a traffic study to understand the characteristics about the traffic flow on the roadway. They wanted to know the how fast traffic is moving and the vehicle size composition; if there were long periods where no sufficient gaps exist for traffic on minor roadways to turn left onto the arterials; and how often vehicles are present, waiting to turn onto the arterial?

The agency deployed two RTMS Echo radars to gather the required data for each location. One unit was installed on the arterial to gather traffic flow data and the other unit was installed at the stop bar of the residential roadway to gather occupancy data.

The insights generated from the traffic data collected at the locations allowed the agency to determine which intersections are at a heightened risk for accidents and focus on additional remediation. The traffic data collected during the initial study was also used for microsimulations to investigate the safety impact of potential solutions.