Using the cameras already installed on campus buses at The Ohio State University, researchers demonstrated that they could automatically and accurately measure counts of vehicles on urban roadways, could detect objects in the road, and could distinguish parked vehicles from those that are moving. 

In previous studies, Ohio State researchers found that using these mobile cameras provides much better spatial and temporal coverage than relying on sparsely and often temporarily placed sensors that don’t provide a view of many streets and roads in a city. 

“If we collect and process more comprehensive high-resolution spatial information about what’s happening on the roads, then planners could better understand changes in demand, effectively improving efficiency in the broader transportation system,” said Keith Redmill, lead author of the study and a research associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Ohio State.

Whereas researchers previously used human observers to manually identify the vehicles in the videos, this study, published in the journal Sensors, automates the process using AI.  

According to co-authors of the study Mark McCord and Rabi Mishalani, both professors of civil, environmental and geodetic engineering at Ohio State, their team chose to utilize the traffic cameras on the Campus Area Bus Service partly because Ohio State’s large, interconnected campus resembles a small city and their relationship with CABS operators gave them ready access to the collected videos. 

“Sharing access to our bus cameras for traffic monitoring is a great example of how university operations can support research and learning,” said Tom Holman, Ohio State’s director of Transportation and Traffic Management. “We are happy to share existing resources that can generate helpful data for long-term traffic planning purposes on campus and beyond.”

But what sets this study apart from similar traffic-related studies is that it utilizes available resources at no extra cost: bus cameras that have already been installed for other safety and security purposes. This allows it to be easily integrated into how other cities manage their traffic monitoring, said Mishalani. 

“If we can measure traffic in a way that is as good or better than what is conventionally done with fixed sensors, then we will have created something incredibly useful extremely cheaply,” he said. “Our goal is to start building a system that could do this without much manual intervention because if you want to collect this information over lots of potential vehicles and lots of time, it’s worth fully automating that process.” 

The system works by utilizing a state-of-the-art 2D deep learning model called YOLOv4 to automatically detect and track objects. The program is also uniquely adept at recognizing multiple objects in a single image frame, said Redmill. 

While still a long way from total implementation, the study suggests the system’s results bear promise for the future of intelligent traffic surveillance. For example, besides counting vehicles, their algorithm is also able to project real-world bird’s-eye-view coordinates of the road network by taking advantage of streams of images, GNSS measurements, and regional information from 2D maps. It’s so precise, the system was also able to detect if the bus veered off from its planned route – and then report it to a map database that logs detailed information about the roadways, said Redmill, who is also a member of Ohio State’s Control and Intelligent Transportations Research Lab (CITR).

With widespread deployment and integration of their proposed approach, the vast collection and complete automation of processing of this data over time would allow for more effective planning, designing and operation of roadways to mitigate heavy traffic across the country. As for the benefits the public might see, such advancements in traffic surveillance could mean reduced travel times and greater travel choices when trying to get from point A to point B. 

“Transportation planners, engineers and operators make vital decisions about the future of our roadways, so when designing transportation systems to work over the next 30 to 50 years, it’s imperative that we give them data that allows them to improve the efficiency of the system and the level of service provided to travelers,” said Mishalani.

The research was supported by the United States Department of Transportation’s  Mobility21 University Transportation Center program. Other co-authors are Ekim Yurtsever and Benjamin Coifman, both of Ohio State.

Researchers investigated the impact of bus rapid transit (or BRT) systems on property values near 11 BRT systems in 10 U.S. cities, noting previous research found that traditional bus services generally have a minor negative impact on nearby land values and apartment rent prices.

While BRT didn’t have a negative impact in most of the cities studied, it did improve multi-family property values in some cities such as Cleveland, which may be a model that some other cities can follow, said Blake Acton, who led the study as a graduate student at The Ohio State University.

“What we saw in Cleveland is something that's new and desirable, and people really want to live near the BRT system there,” Acton said. “That demonstrates that it's possible to build premium BRT infrastructure and stimulate transit-oriented development in the United States.”

The study was published in the Journal of Transport Geography.

“Our results show that locations near BRT systems in congested, growing cities with high transit ridership can see property value increases,” said study co-author Harvey Miller, professor of geography and director of the Center for Urban and Regional Analysis at Ohio State. "But high quality BRT can have positive impacts in more cities.”

BRT is distinguished from traditional bus service by seeking to deliver faster and more efficient service through amenities such as dedicated lanes for buses, greater service frequency, traffic signal priority, off-board fare collection, elevated platforms and enhanced stations.

However, most BRT systems in the United States lack key features – most importantly, dedicated bus lanes – and often are often referred to as “BRT-lite.” In contrast, high-quality full BRT systems include dedicated lanes.

BRT gained popularity around the world at the beginning of the century, but only 438 of these systems exist in the U.S today – about 8.2% of the entire world’s system length.

“BRT exists all over the world, and not just dense mega cities,” Acton said. “BRT can link together walkable areas in cities that historically have been very isolated.”

By comparing the before-and-after effect of BRT systems in 10 cities across the U.S on property price data from 1990-2016, the study was able to determine that unlike traditional bus services, amenity-filled BRT routes don't generally harm property values. In addition to Cleveland, the study examined BRT systems in Seattle, Eugene (Oregon), Oakland, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Boston and Miami. The study also controlled for neighborhood attributes that might change over time such as race, income, education, in addition to proximity to jobs and green space.Results showed that three of the 11 BRT systems experienced property value increases near stations, one system experienced a decrease and the remaining seven showed no significant changes.

BRT can especially benefit the value of multi-family residences, the study found.

“We created separate models where we looked at just single-family properties and multi-family properties, wherever there was enough to do that in the city,” said Acton. “When we looked at Cleveland, we found an enormous difference between the two.”

Their findings showed while single-family homes along the Cleveland Healthline system saw no change to their values, multi-family residences saw a 41.5% increase to their property values, compared to properties located in similar neighborhoods farther away.

Acton said that such a result suggests that bus rapid transit systems can have an overall positive impact on their nearby communities.

The researchers said the success of the Cleveland Healthline service in increasing property values may be credited to the fact that it operates along a major thoroughfare, it has dedicated bus lanes, and the corridor experienced $7 billion of new investments, including major streetscape renovations. That helped lead to a 138% increase in ridership compared to the bus service it replaced.

Multi-family properties may be the main beneficiary of rising property values linked to BRTs because these bus systems make commuting without cars easier and thus encourage more dense housing.

Findings also indicated that a car-oriented BRT station design can be more of a nuisance rather than a benefit to the neighborhood, Miller said.

“The only time BRT harms property values is if you have stations surrounded by parking. That means that the BRT stations are not walkable and not well integrated into the city,” he said.

Overall, the study results suggest BRT, if done right, can encourage more dense housing and improve some property values, Miller said.

“Public transit is the backbone of a sustainable urban transportation system. I hope our study encourages more communities to consider high-quality BRT as a viable option,” he said.