| In the rapidly evolving world of transportation engineering, the modern roundabout is quickly gaining popularity as an alternative to a conventional intersection. While modern roundabouts offer many positive features, one significant shortcoming is the increased difficulty of capturing equivalent turning movement counts after the roundabout has been built. In speaking with several public transportation officials and private consultants, an opportunity for innovation was quickly established, as current methods are often quite laborious, expensive, and prone to errors. The objectives for the research were then crafted to create a cost efficient and easily replicatable system for electronically capturing equivalent turning movement counts at a four leg modern roundabout. Recognizing the temporal variations in traffic, even a 100% perfect count is of similar use as a less than perfect count, the research has sought to strike a balance between accuracy, ease of use, and cost effectiveness for the end user.;This methodology for automated capturing of turning movement counts at a modern roundabout is both hardware and software based. These tools include an aerially mounted video camera, dome mirror, and an off-the-shelf video processing tool. Using a database inside of a scripting language environment, paired with a unique algorithm to detect right turning vehicles, the system created by this research then uses a system of equations to compute volumes for through and left turns movements, resulting in a complete origin-destination matrix. This automated process decreases the analysis time significantly and reduces labor costs resulting in a cost effective solution in less time than conventional alternatives. |
