In response to the increase in accidents and fatalities due to wrong-way driving on freeways, camera technology company FLIR has been selected by the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) to design and implement a detection and countermeasure decision-support system based on FLIR’s Cameleon ITS and TrafiSense video-analytic thermal cameras.

When a vehicle passes through the detection zone of a FLIR TrafiSense camera, video analytics determine its direction and speed. Field tests conducted by ADOT concluded that thermal video analytics sensors are the most effective technology for detecting wrong-way drivers when compared to other available technology such as loops, visible-spectrum analytics and radar. Nonetheless, event confirmation is of the utmost importance as activating countermeasures in response to false alarms would be highly disruptive to traffic.

The company says that, in order to eliminate false detection, wrong-way events are confirmed by Cameleon through two pathways. The primary pathway is visual confirmation by an operator using Cameleon’s automated video call-up. The alternate pathway is a fully automated confirmation by Cameleon when an adjacent detection occurs. FLIR’s WWD system applies life-saving countermeasures immediately upon event confirmation.

The solution also has visual confirmation, multi-detector and risk mitigation technologies and delivers public closures, and close on-ramps and issue wider alerts.

(Picture – FLIR)