Seeing the bigger picture

The latest software makes it possible for city transportation and police departments to use – with ease – the enhanced camera and sensing technology found in smart cities

Words | José Antonio Illarregui Sanchez, BC Sistemas, Spain

Cities have many devices that can provide relevant information to traffic managers, for different applications. Among these are video-surveillance and traffic-control systems, supported by video analysis. Cameras in cities are today capable of submitting sophisticated metadata such as vehicle license plates, vehicle color, make and model, vehicle counts, people counts and facial recognition data. The challenge that city managers now face is to use all the data retrieved from a huge variety of devices to help organize traffic, while also alerting police officers about dangerous or anomalous situations.

Janus solution

The Janus software that BC Sistemas presented at Intertraffic Amsterdam 2016 has become an even more powerful solution. This is partly due to experience working with local police departments in different countries, as they adapt to the new security challenges that cities are facing.

Janus stores metadata from cameras, sensors and other devices, at the location and moment that they occur. The application, by means of a learning process, arrives at conclusions about the behavioral patterns of traffic in a particular area, which will then be used to determine if a situation is anomalous.

The new Janus suite allows access to functions that were already available before, such as managed access to different, defined areas, but it also now allows total personalization, to meet the needs of

the police. For example, any piece of metadata, not just license plate information, can be used as a defining element. The programmable actions also go way beyond proposing fines: interaction with physical contacts is possible, for example, users can lower bollards, change traffic lights to red or green, open barriers, change variable message signs, or send messages to particular citizens.

The alert module enables users to define infinite rules, which will be used by the system to inform authorities about anomalous situations. For example, Janus could create an alert based on the behavior of a vehicle, which not being known or resident in a given zone, has driven into that zone more than twice in the past three days at night-time.

Integration with other systems

Janus software eases the integration with external systems – such as ALPR cameras, video analytics systems, radar, traffic signals and bollards – from multiple manufacturers.

Integrating with municipal video recording is vitally important since, for fines (such as for red light enforcement) and also for security reasons, metadata and photos are needed. It is vital to grant easy and instant access to video cameras at the moment when analysis is necessary.

The design of the Janus application allows for incorporating any type of metadata that technology makes available. For example, if a device records the number of occupants in a vehicle, Janus will integrate it and collect it as another metadatum, with which to establish rules, perform analysis and make decisions.

Application benefits

With Janus, transportation departments can receive both information about real-time traffic patterns and alerts on anomalous behaviors, as well as establish all kinds of tailored statistics that can incorporate any type of metadata.

Police departments will be able to improve their effectiveness and save time by detecting ‘wanted’ plates automatically, maintaining a registry for vehicles – authorized and unauthorized – and by quickly performing checks on suspicious vehicles. Searches can be established for many parameters, such as vehicle color and type, zone and time, and alarms can be set up for any imaginable condition, as long as current camera and sensor technology are compatible.

Janus is designed to incorporate any device that can produce metadata, so it can be used to help intelligent management of traffic and safety in cities. n

Opposite: Janus software

combines and integrates traffic data for use by the police and transportation authorities

www.janus-traffic.com