Road-Traffic Monitoring by Satellite

E. Kristiansen, C.T. Spracklen, J. Sau Moi Yan, T. Aslam
& J. Barron

In modern industrialised societies, there are large and escalating quantities of traffic on the roads. People are becoming increasingly environmentally aware and there are concerns that this volume of traffic is damaging people’s health, our cities and the countryside, as well as using resources in a wasteful and irresponsible manner.

All off this is leading towards proposals, being discussed in many countries, for road-raffic management. In most countries road traffic is virtually unmanaged, with only minor indirect control being exercised over road vehicles. ESA has proposed an innovative system for road-traffic monitoring by means of satellite communications. A Web-based simulation environment provides a comprehensive and state-of-the-art framework for examining the performance of the proposed system, as well as a comprehensive analysis of the results produced.