01047609

Component

This paper presents a discussion of the new algorithm - Vehicle Gradation Algorithm, VGA- for classification of highway vehicles. The new algorithm is an improvement of the Florida Department of Transpiration’s current algorithm that uses the number of axles and axle spacings. The use of the number of axles and axle spacings has problems of misclassifying passenger vehicles whose axle configurations equal those of trucks. The passenger vehicles which are wrongly classified as trucks can be correctly classified by introducing a new vehicular variable: the number of tires per axle. The variable comes into play after the maturity of technologies that can detect the number of tires on an axle. The new algorithm uses variables of the current algorithm-the number of axles and axle spacings- and the number of tires per axle to classify vehicles on non-weigh-in-motion stations as per omnipresent “Scheme F”. A total of 2662 classified trucks’ axle spacings were downloaded from 8 permanent axle-based traffic counting stations. Video camera was used to provide the class ground truth and the number of tires on axles. The VGA was programmed in computer and run on the data. The VGA achieved a truck classification accuracy of 94.4% which was far higher than 74.6% achieved by the current algorithm. Over 80% of passenger vehicles incorrectly classified as trucks by the current algorithm were correctly taken to non-truck bin by the VGA, leaving only pickups with dual tires. Over 91% of medium trucks towing light trailers incorrectly classified as tractor semi-trailer trucks were correctly classified by the VGA, leaving only those whose light trailers had dual-tired axles. All vehicles unidentified by the current algorithm were correctly classified. The VGA has promising accuracy and can be employed by any transportation agency for Scheme F vehicle classification.

01042056

07-3448

English

15p

2007

Transportation Research Board 86th Annual Meeting

CD-ROM

Figures (3) ; References (8) ; Tables (1)

Axles; Operations; Passenger vehicles; Traffic counting; Truck traffic; Vehicle classification; Weigh in motion; Weigh in motion scales

Vehicle Gradation Algorithm (VGA)

Florida

Administration and Management; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Vehicles and Equipment; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2007 Paper #07-3448

TRIS, TRB

Feb 8 2007 8:08PM