Queuing Theory Guided Intelligent Traffic Scheduling through Video Analysis using Dirichlet Process Mixture Model

TL;DR

This paper introduces a vision-based system that uses Dirichlet Process Mixture Models to analyze vehicle flow and predict traffic signal durations more accurately than existing methods, aiding intelligent traffic management.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach combining optical flow clustering with queuing theory for dynamic traffic signal duration prediction, improving accuracy over traditional tracking features.

Findings

DPMM-based features outperform existing tracking methods in estimating departure rates.

The proposed system achieves higher accuracy in predicting signal durations on public datasets.

The approach enables the development of autonomous traffic control systems.

Abstract

Accurate prediction of traffic signal duration for roadway junction is a challenging problem due to the dynamic nature of traffic flows. Though supervised learning can be used, parameters may vary across roadway junctions. In this paper, we present a computer vision guided expert system that can learn the departure rate of a given traffic junction modeled using traditional queuing theory. First, we temporally group the optical flow of the moving vehicles using Dirichlet Process Mixture Model (DPMM). These groups are referred to as tracklets or temporal clusters. Tracklet features are then used to learn the dynamic behavior of a traffic junction, especially during on/off cycles of a signal. The proposed queuing theory based approach can predict the signal open duration for the next cycle with higher accuracy when compared with other popular features used for tracking. The hypothesis has been verified on two publicly available video datasets. The results reveal that the DPMM based features are better than existing tracking frameworks to estimate $\mu$. Thus, signal duration prediction is more accurate when tested on these datasets.The method can be used for designing intelligent operator-independent traffic control systems for roadway junctions at cities and highways.