@ Peter
Inorder for them to approve the idea, i would propose that we make a small round about model complete with  cars [toys] and sensors and devices that relay all this to a central system. We can fund this with some students to see through the modelling and some of us to see through the hardware code, and others the software code.

Creating this model would be relatively cheap and a demo would serve for an audience with the powers that be to see this through.

However, i would recommend that the cops be kept completely out of this equation [for obvious reasons] ,,, they can control the roads as they see fit,, this solution would be available to those who need it ,, in conjuction with the city council and the radio stations.

Why dont we all meet in the next skunk works meeting ??  I dont know the venue though. See other thread.

w/r



On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 10:23 AM, Peter Karunyu <pkarunyu@gmail.com> wrote:
What about an average? Say the motion devicey tells central control that "vehicles are moving past me at an average speed of 5Km per hour". Just realized the folly with this: a matatu 'bursting' past the sensor would skew the findinds!

Okay, what if the devices measure, not the speed of vehicles, but the rate at which 'objects' are moving past it. Example: "5 vehicles have moved past me in the last 5 minutes". Then have 5 sensors spaced out over 100 metres upto to the roundabout. When central control receives all these readings, we can use some algorithms to determine just how fast traffic is.

Taking your point on
1) a low priority road
2) or a road without much traffic
3) in favor of the high priority road
4) or a road with much traffic

What if all these roads have sensors AND central control knows these sensors are linked by the same roundabout, this then can be used to 'advise' the cop on how better to release traffic.

I think weight sensors are more invasive, requiring physical changes to the road, thus more costs and bureaucracy.

Finally, once all the readings have been received at central control, they can be reformated, recalculated, extrapolated, mined, corelated [, space for more buzzwords here]  and redistributed in as many media as there are: sms, mms, WAP, HTTP, audio, video etc.

So, what next?

On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 11:10 AM, ndungu stephen <ndungustephen@gmail.com> wrote:
Again, as mentioned in the 'tom cruise' anectode, the traffic in kenya heavily depends on the cop(s) at the round about..

which could cause a misjudgement, because the cop could discriminate againist

1) a low priority road
2) or a road without much traffic
3) in favor of the high priority road
4) or a road with much traffic

If you have motion/speed detectors, it could give you a false good/positive reading on numbers 3 and 4 and bad/negative reading on the less congested numbers 1 and 2.
Because at the time of reading, 3 and 4 would be moving, and 1 and 2 would be still.


I dont know if you get the points illustrated ??

Anyway, taking your idea-- i believe the best way would be to have sensors or detectors at various junctures in the road upto may be 500 metres from a junction or round abound,,
These sensors would relay to a remote system the extent or how far back the vehicles are in a particular road.

This of course would be based on the frequency of movement [depending on the type of sensors]. The normal 'light' sensors for example would take the average time it takes for them to 'see' each other across the road.
Weight sensors would be another option.

To illustrate

10    50        60          70         80       90       100       etc
 |       |           |          |             |         |        |
A        B         C          D          E         F        G


If sensors read stationary vehicles upto point B for example, but none beyound e.g 50 meters, then that is a good sign. If sensors pick stationary vehicles at point G, then dont go near that road... just as an example.

This information from the sensors would be presented to a user either as an sms or in a simple graphical form.
For example, i send to a special 4 digit number 'uhuru highway' and i receive a simple graph like this [based on a scale] :-

================ red or worstest [:-)]
============     yellow or bad
=======          grey or acceptable
===              white or [use this one]


The same can be put in a better format [complete with map and color] on a high end user phone - but this time, once can get a larger view of nairobi roads with these color codes interpreted by legends coloring different roads. If you see a road with red on your map, stay away.
This of course would represent live feed from the sensors, to the system to your phone map via gsm/gprs or 3G.

I think this would be another 'cheaper' way -- but the problem again is passing the bureaucracy and getting a budget :-)  !!

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