Counting cars isn’t just a way to pass the time on a long road trip, as an accurate count can help avoid missed collections for toll road operators.
With tollbooths, which cause more accidents and are more expensive to manage, on the way out in most countries around the world, making sure the right electronic toll collection system is in place can be critical.
For John Dinan, Field Application Engineer at LeddarTech, LiDAR is the way to go, with a flash solid-state option one of the best choices.
“The return on investment needs to follow the accuracy increase and operation side of the system, but here, with the solid-state LiDAR and especially with LeddarTech’s T16, which is a product used on many, many tollway systems, what you get is a higher accuracy for your detection system, especially for tailgating, very high-speed vehicles and very tight traffic,” he said.
That sets it apart from other systems currently in place, but mechanical scanning LiDAR is also helpful in other scenarios, such as if the width of a vehicle is needed or a group wants to monitor two, three or even four lanes with one system.
“This higher angular resolution is going to be helpful to have a better resolution on the width of the vehicle,” Dinan said. “That is, I would say, an advantage. However, in practice, the width of the vehicle is seldom used for classification purposes. It’s not data that brings added value, but it’s still an advantage.”