Development of Portable Traffic Flow Auto Measuring System

The traffic data available which to evaluate the fatigue safety of concrete slabs and girders of bridges and pavement of roadways is limited. The reason is that the acquisition of the traffic data requires a lot of time and manpower, and therefore involves a large cost. Over the past few years, the authors have been trying to develop a portable system which monitors the traffic flow and records wheel position and passing times of vehicles at any point on a roadway. This compact system composed of a switch mat, data-logging box and personal computer, also has the ability to process the data and provide histograms of speed and type of vehicles and lateral distribution of wheels, and allows the collecting of a large amount traffic data in various times with minimum cost.