Running-way surveillance
Description/Objective
This section considers Surveillance of the running-way for security, safety and operational purposes. Surveillance of the running-way for detection and deterrence of moving violations and encroachment is covered in the section Traffic Management, Public Transport Lane/facility violation monitoring.
ITS applications provide support for Surveillance of the running-way for security, safety and operational purposes. The ITS systems provide information which must be acted upon by others. As with many other applications, it needs to be embedded in a broader organisational and operational structure.
Running ways include:
- Guided and unguided busways, with high degree of segregation, operating at high speeds
- Right of way with moderate degree of segregation, operating at moderate to high speeds
- Bus lanes with mild physical separator but otherwise quite open, operating at moderate speeds but sometime significantly higher speeds than the adjacent lanes
- Bus lanes without physical separation (lane markings)
Surveillance is required to detect any of the following in the running way:
- Vehicle breakdowns
- Accidents
- Obstacles and hazards
- People or animals within the running way
- People who may seek to damage the system
Surveillance of the running-way can be supported by ITS applications as follows:
- Image acquisition by CCTV
- Detection of blockages, hazards or anomalies by automated Image processing
- Alerts of reduced speeds from the CAD/AVM system
- Incident alerts from the drivers via the CAD/AVM radio system
ITS-based monitoring is based on cameras, with two common deployment scenarios:
- Avail of the CCTV network of the traffic authority
- Install dedicated cameras for monitoring the public transport lanes/facilities
- If no traffic authority cameras available
- To supplement the traffic authority cameras for blind spots, etc.
The CCTV images are usually relayed to a control centre where they are recorded. This could be a BRT system management centre, or the CAD/AVM control centre of the transit operator.
Technologies, data and resources
The main technologies used for at-station surveillance are:
- CCTVs, usually with PTZ (pan, tilt, zoom) or equivalent capability
- Communications from the camera locations, usually land lines and fibre-optic by choice, due to bandwidth requirements
- Voice and data communication to operations, security and support units, and to external entities such as the police and ambulance services
- Viewing screens at control centre
- Image management software
- Image and data storage and archiving
Advantages and Cautions
The primary advantages of Running Way Surveillance are to:
- Provide continuous and comprehensive monitoring of the running way
- Improve the ability to detect obstructions, breakdowns and other items that could disrupt the service, and to respond immediately
- Improve the ability to detect hazards and respond immediately, to avoid accidents
- Record events for later review, including analysis of how operational and security events develop
The principal cautions in relation to Running Way surveillance are:
- The large number of cameras and the large volume of continuous data and image streams need to be well structured and managed.
- Operatives need to be trained in what to observe
- Care needs to be taken to avoid CCTV operatives becoming passive observers of the images
- Costs of maintaining CCTV systems can be high