Accuracy of Numerical Rectification of Video Images to Analyze Bicycle Traffic Scenes

Abstract

A method is presented to process full motion video of traffic scenes to estimate bicycle location, speed, and acceleration at a given rate of image processing. The technique presented to estimate bicycle location data from video frames is based on transforming screen coordinates of video frames to ground or roadway coordinates and is known as rectification. The numerical technique and the error analysis are presented. This technique will allow researchers to video record traffic scenes and analyze them to estimate various microscopic and macroscopic traffic flow measures. These measures may be used to develop and validate traffic flow models. Very few studies have been conducted to study bicycle flow characteristics. The data collection technique presented here should allow researchers to collect bicycle flow data at very low cost.