Road Patrol Research Articles

Urban traffic tiny object detection via attention and multi-scale feature driven in UAV-vision

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) city patrol is of great significance in ensuring the safety of residents’ lives and properties, as well as maintaining the normal operation of the city. However, the detection of UAV images faces challenges such as numerous small-scale objects, complex backgrounds, and high requirements for detection speed. In response to these issues, we introduce a Real-time Small Object Detection network in UAV-vision (RTS-Net), tailored for UAV patrols. Initially, we introduce a multiscale feature fusion module (MFFM) designed to augment the expressiveness of features across scales, thereby enhancing the detection of smaller objects. Subsequently, leveraging attention mechanisms, we present the coordinated attention detection module (CADM), which bolsters the detection model’s ability to accurately segregate objects from the background in expansive, complex scenarios. Lastly, a lightweight real-time feature extraction module (RFEM) is crafted to diminish model computational complexity and boost inference speed. On the UAV road patrol image dataset we constructed, our proposed method attains a detection accuracy of 89.9%\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\%$$\\end{document} mAP, breaking previous records. It surpasses all prevailing detection methods, particularly for small-scale objects. Simultaneously, it achieves an inference speed of 163.9 FPS. The experimental results show that RTS-Net can satisfy the accurate and efficient detection of ground objects by various different UAV platforms in different complex scenarios.

ДОРОЖНО-ПАТРУЛЬНАЯ СЛУЖБА: ФОРМИРОВАНИЕ ИНСТИТУТА ОБЕСПЕЧЕНИЯ ДОРОЖНОГО ДВИЖЕНИЯ В РОССИИ (ИСТОРИКО-ПРАВОВОЙ АСПЕКТ)

The article examines the historical and legal aspects of the formation, formation and functioning of the Institute of traffic Safety in Russia, the road patrol service. In the modern conditions of the development of the Russian and world community, interest in the history of both domestic and international character has sharply increased. The study of history is a kind of modern trend. The development of the road complex is most closely connected with such aspects as the development of the institute of road traffic as a whole, as well as the development of its supporting entities, including the bodies that controlled the implementation of the road traffic process. The road patrol service was born in the conditions of a clearly outlined need to ensure road safety, as well as accompanied by the process of adopting appropriate regulatory legal acts that were issued in response to specific requests from society. For the first time such structures, services, appeared and began their functioning at the end of the 17th century

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Perspective Small Target Recognition Algorithm Based on Improved YOLOv5

Small target detection has been widely used in applications that are relevant to everyday life and have many real-time requirements, such as road patrols and security surveillance. Although object detection methods based on deep learning have achieved great success in recent years, they are not effective in small target detection. In order to solve the problem of low recognition rate caused by factors such as low resolution of UAV viewpoint images and little valid information, this paper proposes an improved algorithm based on the YOLOv5s model, called YOLOv5s-pp. First, to better suppress interference from complex backgrounds and negative samples in images, we add a CA attention module, which can better focus on task-specific important channels while weakening the influence of irrelevant channels. Secondly, we improve the forward propagation and generalisation of the network using the Meta-ACON activation function, which adaptively learns to adjust the degree of linearity or nonlinearity of the activation function based on the input data. Again, the SPD Conv module is incorporated into the network model to address the problems of reduced learning efficiency and loss of fine-grained information due to cross-layer convolution in the model. Finally, the detection head is improved by using smaller, smaller-target detection heads to reduce missed detections. We evaluated the algorithm on the VisDrone2019-DET and UAVDT datasets and compared it with other state-of-the-art algorithms. Compared to YOLOv5s, mAP@.5 improved by 7.4% and 6.5% on the VisDrone2019-DET and UAVDT datasets, respectively, and compared to YOLOv8s, mAP@.5 improved by 0.8% and 2.1%, respectively. For improving the performance of the UAV-side small target detection algorithm, it will help to enhance the reliability and safety of UAVs in critical missions such as military reconnaissance, road patrol and security surveillance.

Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training and impact on mental illness and substance use-related stigma among law enforcement

Limited empirical data and research exists about stigmatizing attitudes and perceptions held by law enforcement officers towards persons with mental illness and substance use issues. Pre- and post-training survey data from 92 law enforcement personnel who attended a 40-hour Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training was used to investigate training-related changes in mental illness stigma and substance use stigma. Training participant's mean age was 38.35 ± 9.50 years, majority white non-Hispanic race/ethnicity (84.2%), male gender (65.2%), and reported job category as road patrol (86.9%). Pre-training, 76.1% endorsed at least one stigmatizing attitude towards people with mental illness, and 83.7% held a stigmatizing attitude towards those with substance use problems. Poisson regression revealed that working road patrol (RR=0.49, p<0.05), awareness of community resources (RR=0.66, p<0.05), and higher levels of self-efficacy (RR=0.92, p<0.05) were associated with lower mental illness stigma pre-training. Knowledge of communication strategies (RR=0.65, p<0.05) was associated with lower pre-training substance use stigma. Post-training, improvement in knowledge of community resources and increases in self-efficacy were significantly associated with decreases in both mental illness and substance use stigma. These findings highlight the existence of stigma related to both mental illness and substance use pre-training suggesting the need for implicit and explicit bias training prior to the start of active law enforcement duty. These data are consistent with prior reports indicating CIT trainings as a path to address mental illness and substance use stigma. Further research on effects of stigmatizing attitudes and additional stigma-specific training content is warranted.

Public-Private Partnerships: Exploring Perceptions and Efficacy of Community Security Patrols

This paper explores how one large police agency entered into a public-private partnership with a private security firm to supplement police power and presence in two diverse, high-crime neighborhoods. Using a quasi-experimental design, the researchers found road patrol in marked security vehicles produced significant decreases in Part I and II crimes in the pre-and post-implementation periods. Further, surveys of residents revealed that after the completion of the project, citizens had more positive perceptions of the police, believed that crime had declined, and reported lower fear of crime.

Accessibility to Protected Areas Increases Primate Hunting Intensity in Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea

Bioko is one of the most important sites for African primate conservation; yet it has seen a severe decline in its primate populations due to illegal hunting to supply a thriving wildmeat trade. The completion in 2015 of a new road bisecting the Gran Caldera Scientific Reserve (GCSR), where rugged terrain and lack of infrastructure once served as a natural barrier, further threatened this last stronghold for Bioko's primates. Here we used passive acoustic monitoring to study factors affecting hunting patterns within GCSR through the automatic detection of shotgun sounds. Ten acoustic sensors were placed in locations that varied in terrain heterogeneity, distance to the new road, human settlements, research camps (i.e., Moraka and Moaba) and elevation. Sensors recorded continuously between January 2018 and January 2020, collecting 2,671 site-days of audio. In total 596 gunshots were detected, including in the most remote areas. There were significant differences in hunting rate between areas (Kruskal-Wallis, χ2 = 102.71, df = 9, p &amp;lt; 0.001). We also found there were significantly fewer gunshots during 2019 than during 2018 (V = 55, p &amp;lt; 0.001). Occupancy modeling showed that hunting increased with decreasing terrain heterogeneity and decreasing distance to roads and villages; and decreased with increasing proximity to Research Camps. These results demonstrated that increasing accessibility increased primate hunting in GCSR, which was exacerbated by the opening of the new road. We also demonstrated that research presence was effective at reducing primate hunting. Unless strict conservation interventions are implemented, including road checkpoints, increasing biomonitoring and hunting patrols, and an island-wide, enforced ban on firearms, GCSR will see a significant decrease in primate density over the next decade, including the potential extinction of Critically Endangered Pennant's red colobus, whose entire population is restricted to GCSR and is a primary target of hunters.

Development of a method for estimating road surface condition in winter using random forest

Because road surface snow conditions are mainly monitored by road patrols, if road surface conditions can be estimated based on meteorological conditions and traffic volume, winter road management can be performed more efficiently. Therefore, this study focuses on estimating road surface snow conditions. The relationship between weather conditions, traffic volume, and road surface conditions was analyzed, and a road surface condition estimation model was constructed using random forest. In addition, because there is a relationship between road surface conditions and tire noise, we estimated the road surface condition by adding tire noise to the weather and traffic volume. As a result, we constructed a model for estimating the road surface condition from the weather and traffic volume, with an accuracy of approximately 95%. The accuracy was slightly lower when the tire noise was added.

Performance measurement and resource sharing among business sub-units in the presence of non-discretionary factors

PurposeThis paper aims to apply a new approach for resource sharing and efficiency estimation of subunits in the presence of non-discretionary factors and partial impacts among inputs and outputs in the data envelopment analysis (DEA) framework.Design/methodology/approachFirst, inspired by the Imanirad et al.’s model (2013), the authors consider that each decision-making unit (DMU) may consist of several subunits, that each of which can be affected by non-discretionary inputs. After that, the Banker and Morey’s model (1996) is used for modeling non-discretionary factors. For measuring performance of several subunits, which can be considered as DMUs, the aggregate efficiency is suggested. At last, the overall efficiency is computed and compared with each other.FindingsOne of the important features of proposed model is that each output in this model applies discretionary input according to its need; therefore, the result of this study will make it easier for the managers to make better decisions. Also, it indicates that significant predictions of the development of the overall efficiency of DMUs can be based on observing the development level of subunits because of the influence of non-discretionary input. Therefore, the proposed model provides a more reasonable and encompassing measure of performance in participating non-discretionary and discretionary inputs to better efficiency. An application of the proposed model for gaining efficiency of 17 road patrols is provided.Research limitations/implicationsMore non-discretionary and discretionary inputs can be taken into consideration for a better analysis. This study provides us with a framework for performance measures along with useful managerial insights. Focusing upon the right scope of operations may help out the management in improving their overall efficiency and performance. In the recent highway maintenance management systems, the environmental differences exist among patrols and other geotechnical services under the climate diverse. Further, in some cases, there might exist more than one non-discretionary factor that can have different effects on the subunits’ performance.Practical implicationsThe purpose of this paper was to measure the performance of a set of the roadway maintenance crews and to analyze the impact of non-discretionary inputs on the efficiency of the roadway maintenance. The application of the proposed model, on the one hand, showed that each output in this model uses discretionary input according to its requirement, and on the other hand, the result showed that meaningful predictions of the development of the overall efficiency of DMUs can be based on observing the development level of subunits because of the impact of non-discretionary input.Originality/valueProviding information on resource sharing by taking into account non-discretionary factors for each subunit can help managers to make better decisions to increase the efficiency.

Road Patrol Strategy based on Pothole Occurrence Characteristics considering Rainfall Effects

Road Patrol Strategy based on Pothole Occurrence Characteristics considering Rainfall Effects

Психологические компоненты профессионального имиджа инспекторов дорожно-патрульной службы Государственной инспекции безопасности дорожного движения и направления его совершенствования

The article deals with psychological components of the phenomenon of the professional image of the inspectors of the Road Patrol Service of the State Road Safety Inspectorate are the subject of the study.&#x0D; The purposes of the scientific article are to present psychological characteristics of leading components of the professional image of the inspectors of the Road Patrol Service of the State Road Safety Inspectorate and to determine the trends of its improvement.&#x0D; It’s established that the most significant elements of the discussed professional image are appearance, knowledge of normative legal acts, the culture of dialogue, competent speech and the ability to handle stress and require urgent attention and development – a normative legal acts and speech skills. &#x0D; A synthesis of the literature and an empirical study carried out using methods of a written survey, observation, ranking, and analysis of situations has allowed not only to reveal the psychological meaning of each component image, but also to identify the likely directions of its improvement. A special place among these directions is given to improving the quality of legal and psychological training, and training in practical linguistics in the field of business communication with traffic participants.&#x0D; The scientific novelty of research consists in the reflection of the modern view on the problem of professional image of the employee through the eyes of the subjects of its formation and in the formulation of specific proposals based on the experience of the respondents and sought after in the course of further modernization of the image of the inspectors of the Road Patrol Service of the State Road Safety Inspectorate.

Stress as an occupational risk factor among policemen of road patrol service

The hygienic evaluation of occupational factors which characterized working conditions of traffic policemen of road patrol service was performed. The authors found that along with high neuro-emotional occupational stress in traffic policemen, they exposed to unfavorable microclimate, higher level of noise, vibration and their work was classified as heavy. Also, traffic policemen presented subjective complaints about negative impact of polluted air of motorways on their health status. Prevalence of chronic diseases was analyzed in group of 431 traffic policemen. The authors revealed a leading role of the following diseases: musculoskeletal diseases, diseases of connective tissue, digestive diseases, diseases of the nerve system, circulation system; their portion in the morbidity structure was 86.0%. The association of these diseases with occupation was confirmed by the increasing of their incidence with increasing of length of duration of service. Calculation of indices of relative occupational risk showed (that especially important) the increase of the length of service led to the increase in the risk ofpathologies, in which stress played a significant role. In examined group, the authors revealed such diseases as hypertension, autonomous-vascular dystonia, gastric and duodenal ulcer. Risk of the development of these diseases in some age/length of service groups is classified as high and very high. Obtained results provide the evidence that measures aimed to the decrease of the exposure to occupational factors will promote prevention of stress-stipulated diseases among traffic policemen.

Using road patrol data to identify factors associated with carnivore roadkill counts.

As the global road network expands, roads pose an emerging threat to wildlife populations. One way in which roads can affect wildlife is wildlife-vehicle collisions, which can be a significant cause of mortality through roadkill. In order to successfully mitigate these problems, it is vital to understand the factors that can explain the distribution of roadkill. Collecting the data required to enable this can be expensive and time consuming, but there is significant potential in partnering with organisations that conduct existing road patrols to obtain the necessary data. We assessed the feasibility of using roadkill data collected daily between 2014 and 2017 by road patrol staff from a private road agency on a 410 km length of the N3 road in South Africa. We modelled the relationship between a set of environmental and anthropogenic variables on the number of roadkill carcasses, using serval (Leptailurus serval) as a model species. We recorded 5.24 serval roadkill carcasses/100 km/year. The number of carcasses was related to season, the amount of wetland, and NDVI, but was not related to any of the anthropogenic variables we included. This suggests that roadkill patterns may differ greatly depending on the ecology of species of interest, but targeting mitigation measures where roads pass through wetlands may help to reduce serval roadkill. Partnering with road agencies for data collection offers powerful opportunities to identify factors related to roadkill distribution and reduce the threats posed by roads to wildlife.

Task Assignment Algorithm for Road Patrol by Multiple UAVs With Multiple Bases and Rechargeable Endurance

Increasing attention has been paid to the application of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in traffic field. Existing studies on UAVs in road patrol task assignment rarely integrate the actual requirements of multiple bases, charging problems during inspection and multiple types of UAVs into the patrol model, and rarely consider the fastest time to complete the patrol of all task points as the optimization target. In addition, most existing solving algorithms are difficult to use to directly solve problem models meeting the above requirements and objectives, and some existing algorithms need to be improved in terms of solving quality. In order to solve those problems, a task assignment model for road patrol by multiple UAVs with multiple bases and rechargeable endurance is established, and a time-priority immune clonal selection algorithm with optimization-revision is proposed. The optimal sequence of task points is obtained by the immune clonal selection algorithm, and the time-priority method is adopted to divide the sequence of task points. The optimal UAV paths are further optimized and modified. With 20 task points, the experimental results show that the earliest completion time obtained by the proposed algorithm decreased by 1.071 and 2.1209 compared with the earliest reachable time particle swarm optimization algorithm and the improved dynamic programming ant colony algorithm, respectively. The results indicate that proposed algorithm achieves better performance in terms of solution quality. In addition, experiments with 50 and 100 task points show that the algorithm is also suitable for medium and large scale problems.

Testing the Value of Citizen Science for Roadkill Studies: A Case Study from South Africa

Roads impact wildlife through a range of mechanisms from habitat loss and decreased landscape connectivity to direct mortality through wildlife-vehicle collisions (roadkill). These collisions have been rated amongst the highest modern risks to wildlife. With the development of ‘citizen science’ projects, in which members of the public participate in data collection, it is now possible to monitor the impacts of roads over scales far beyond the limit of traditional studies. However, the reliability of data provided by citizen scientists for roadkill studies remains largely untested. This study used a dataset of 2 666 roadkill reports on national and regional roads in South Africa (total length ~170 000 km) over three years. We first compared roadkill data collected from trained road patrols operating on a major highway with data submitted by citizen scientists on the same road section (431 km). We found that despite minor differences, the broad spatial and taxonomic patterns were similar between trained reporters and untrained citizen scientists. We then compared data provided by two groups of citizen scientists across South Africa: 1) those working in the zoology/conservation sector (that we have termed ‘regular observers’, whose reports were considered to be more accurate due to their knowledge and experience), and 2) occasional observers, whose reports required verification by an expert. Again, there were few differences between the type of roadkill report provided by regular and occasional reporters; both types identified the same area (or cluster) where roadkill was reported most frequently. However, occasional observers tended to report charismatic and easily identifiable species more often than road patrols or regular observers. We conclude that citizen scientists can provide reliable data for roadkill studies when it comes to identifying general patterns and high-risk areas. Thus, citizen science has the potential to be a valuable tool for identifying potential roadkill hotspots and at-risk species across large spatial and temporal scales that are otherwise impractical and expensive when using standard data collection methodologies. This tool allows researchers to extract data and focus their efforts on potential areas and species of concern, with the ultimate goal of implementing effective roadkill-reduction measures.

On Improvement of Information Technologies for Optimization of Activity of the Road Patrol Service Divisions of Law-Enforcement Agencies in Russia

The article discusses the problems of improving the information support of the units of the road patrol service of the state traffi c Inspectorate of the law enforcement agencies. It is noted that the strategy of reforming the road patrol service is aimed at reducing the number of staff, so the level of workload will increase. Due to this immediate measures are required to improve the activities of the mentioned units. The level of intensity of the employees of road patrol service’s work in the course of registration of materials connected with transport incidents is analyzed. It is proved that information is a key element of the complex of actions of police offi cers during the registration of materials on road traffi c incident. Improvement of the information circulation activities, including its transmission, processing and using, will signifi cantly reduce the time taken to register the materials connected with transport incidents. The necessity to introduce the hardware and software complexes of automated registration of road traffi c incidents is proved. The authors conclude that there is a need for MIA of Russia to issue a legal regulatory act on application of such hardware and software complexes by divisions of road patrol service of Inspectorate of the law enforcement.

FEATURES OF THE ORGANIZATION OF ACTIONS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES TO MAINTAIN LAW AND ORDER ON THE TERRITORY OF KRASNODAR REGION AS THE BASIS FOR A STABLE COOPERATION OF PUBLIC AUTHORITIES WITH CIVIL SOCIETY

The main objective of the coordination meeting of the region is the improvement of the activities of law enforcement and efficient interaction of Executive authorities with public organizations of the region. Currently the focus is on police cooperation with security agencies and Executive bodies to obtain information and exchange information about the phenomenon in General. During the celebrations is the involvement of law enforcement voluntary national and Cossack teams. Employees of road patrol services region in a timely manner ensures road safety, organized by the prevention and suppression of offenses. For the purpose of anti-terrorist security of the population and socio-infrastructure facilities, law enforcement officers, using technical means, service dogs in advance to survey the territory of places of mass public events. Currently in Krasnodar monitored more than 85 road intersections, public transport stops, transport stations of the city of Krasnodar, at the bus station, the airport and at the state, municipal educational institutions, administrative buildings, parks, squares, shopping, entertainment centers, temples. One of the main directions in 2014 - 2015 was the task of increasing the effectiveness of investigative activities. It was directly related to the implementation of the basic principle of justice – ensuring the inevitability of punishment for the committed crime. Technical possibilities of the modern cameras allow you to set even the personality of the person. Examples of successful work on disclosing especially grave crimes can be facts the disclosure of various crimes in the districts and localities of Krasnodar region. Examples of effective work on disclosing especially grave crimes can be facts the disclosure of various crimes in Krasnoarmeysky district, in cities of Krasnodar, Armavir, Kropotkin and Novorossiysk. A full-fledged activity of civil society depends on the social environment, lack of criminality.

Protective Relays with Traveling Wave Technology Revolutionize Fault Locating

Accurate fault locating on transmission lines is of great value to power transmission asset owners and operators. Fault locating as a discipline dates back to the 1940s. Visual inspection methods evolved from road patrols in the past, to air patrols today, and, more recently, to trials with unmanned aerial vehicles. Fault locating using electrical measurements evolved from simple electromechanical devices to microprocessor-based systems integrated with geospatial data.

Application-Oriented Farsi ALPD Using Deterministic Edge Clustering

In this paper a new application-oriented method for automatic Farsi license plate detection (ALPD), based on morphology and a modified edge clustering algorithm is proposed. Access control (AC), law enforcement (LE), and road patrol (RP) are mainly three applications for ALPD. After image enhancement by preprocessing, the edge statistics analysis and the morphology filter are used to decrease the search regions and remove the unwanted edges. Then the expectationmaximization (E-M) algorithm is used to estimate the corresponding Gaussian components for edges of remained regions. In this way the results of edge clustering and Gaussian components estimation are deterministic whereas the processing time in comparison with similar approaches in literature, is decreased significantly. Candidate regions are obtained by applying application-oriented thresholds to the properties of estimated Gaussian components. Finally for each candidate region, the maximally stable extremal region (MSER) detector is used to detect character-like regions and then select the region(s) of interest containing license plates. The proposed method is evaluated by using a database which includes images for the three groups AC, LE and RP applications, whereas some images suffer of being low quality, low contrast and blur and some images have complex background through existing multiple license plates. The experimental results show that our proposed method is reliable for images of different quality and illumination condition and it is able to detect the rotated and skewed license plates even in images containing multiple license plates and complex backgrounds. Keywords—License plate detection, license plate character segmentation, application oriented, edge clustering.

Women and Crime in the Rural-Urban Fringe

This article focuses on human actors and a spatial setting which are rarely the subject of criminological inquiry. Both the actors (drug-involved low-level female offenders) and the setting in which they reside (the rural-urban fringe) have been relegated to some nether world of criminal justice scholarship: they are considered neither significant nor consequential enough to warrant scientific interest, and when they do enter the scholarly picture it is often in a caricaturelike way. Indeed, the women of interest here, drug-involved recidivist property and public order offenders, often have been reduced in the media to drug-addled, crystal-meth scarred beings with minimal voice, little context, and even less meaning, inhabiting a world that is defined simply for what it is not - neither urban, nor rural. The research took place in four upstate New York counties, with data collected by way of intensive, qualitative interviews from four sources: the Sheriffs in each county, other law enforcement personnel (including members of the road patrol and drug task forces for the county), jail staff, and 20 women being held in local county jails who met the selection criteria. In framing the inquiry, emphasis was placed on exploring the effects of the rural-urban fringe setting on the women’s entry into drug / criminal activity and the roles played by community institutions, arrangements, and opportunity structures to facilitate their involvement in these pursuits.

Application-Oriented License Plate Recognition

We split the applications of vehicle license plate recognition (LPR) into three major categories and propose a solution with parameter settings that are adjustable for different applications. The three categories are access control (AC), law enforcement (LE), and road patrol (RP). Each application is characterized by variables of different variation scopes and thus requires different settings on the solution with which to deal. The proposed solution consists of three modules for plate detection, character segmentation, and recognition. Edge clustering is formulated for solving plate detection for the first time. It is also a novel application of the maximally stable extreme region (MSER) detector to character segmentation. A bilayer classifier, which is improved with an additional null class, is experimentally proven to be better than previous methods for character recognition. To assess the performance of the proposed solution, the application-oriented license plate (AOLP) database is composed and made available to the research community. Experiments show that the proposed solution outperforms many previous solutions, and LPR can be better solved by solutions with settings oriented for different applications.