Characterizing the Cyclists' Path - Overtaking Maneuver Detection and Vehicles' Speed Estimation

Filipa Fernandes Adanjo de Oliveira

Key information

Authors:

Filipa Fernandes Adanjo de Oliveira (Filipa Fernandes Adanjo de Oliveira)

Supervisors:

Manuel Ricardo De Almeida Rodrigues Marques (Manuel Ricardo de Almeida Rodrigues Marques); João Paulo Salgado Arriscado Costeira (João Paulo Salgado Arriscado Costeira)

Published in

07/05/2018

Abstract

The traffic pollution is a scourge of urban areas and several transportation policies have been adopted to increase the use of sustainable transportation, such as bicycles. To develop this desirable trend and design new infrastructures, policy makers require tools for cyclists’ risk assessment. In this work, a video-based method to estimate overtaking maneuvers and vehicles’ speed is proposed. It was possible to geo-reference these stressful events for riders, providing a framework for path characterization concerning roads’ suitability and safety for cyclists. From action camera sequences of images and smartphone’s GPS data, the proposed method is based on license plate recognition and tracking of approaching vehicles near cyclist surroundings. A new dataset with realistic bicycle scenarios in urban roads is made available and used as case of study. It was possible to compare distinct streets and differentiate different urban areas based on the speed of detected overtaking maneuvers.