New solutions enhancing road safety developed in Finland

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Emtele Ltd are developing movable traffic surveillance equipment capable of automatically measuring the speed and height of passing vehicles and the distances between them as well as assessing the condition of brakes in heavy vehicles. In the future, the equipment will also be able to measure the weight of a moving vehicle and the friction of the road surface.

The innovative automated traffic surveillance solution is based on machine vision technology developed by VTT and communication technology and information distibution technology provided by Emtele Ltd. Emtele's data transfer solution gives the police and other road authorities direct access to the data captured by the road side unit.

In the first phase, the police staff at a control station can observe and analyse possible traffic violations from the data provided by the equipment. The equipment will be further developed so that in the future, the data collected can be directly sent to a mobile terminal of local police vehicles.

The Finnish Traffic Police is participating in the project in an advisory board and as a road safety and enforcement expert. The participation of the police administration in the project negotiation group allows the end user perspective to be considered from early stage of the project.

The surveillance equipment is being developed within the framework of the EU-funded project called ASSET-Road. The project aims to improve road safety through measures that improve observance of traffic rules and regulations. Moreover, the intention is to elaborate for public authorities new innovative solutions and technology to gather traffic data and utilise it in traffic enforcement and surveillance.

VTT is also investigating the utilisation of RFID technology as an electronic number plate where the tags imitate electronic license plate. When these tags are mounted on a vehicle, an RFID reader can then identify each vehicle according its identity code.

There are three different surveillance equipment prototypes being developed in the project, designed to enhance traffic surveillance in Finland, Germany and France. The project has a total budget of 8.1 million Euros, of which the Finnish partners account for 1.4 million Euros.