A graph-based approach to vehicle tracking in traffic camera video streams

TitleA graph-based approach to vehicle tracking in traffic camera video streams
Publication TypeConference Papers
Year of Publication2007
AuthorsShahri H H, Namata G, Navlakha S, Deshpande A, Roussopoulos N
Conference NameProceedings of the 4th workshop on Data management for sensor networks: in conjunction with 33rd International Conference on Very Large Data Bases
Date Published2007///
PublisherACM
Conference LocationNew York, NY, USA
ISBN Number978-159593-911-1
Abstract

Vehicle tracking has a wide variety of applications from law enforcement to traffic planning and public safety. However, the image resolution of the videos available from most traffic camera systems, make it difficult to track vehicles based on unique identifiers like license plates. In many cases, vehicles with similar attributes are indistinguishable from one another due to image quality issues. Often, network bandwidth and power constraints limit the frame rate, as well. In this paper, we discuss the challenges of performing vehicle tracking queries over video streams from ubiquitous traffic cameras. We identify the limitations of tracking vehicles individually in such conditions and provide a novel graph-based approach using the identity of neighboring vehicles to improve the performance. We evaluate our approach using streaming video feeds from live traffic cameras available on the Internet. The results show that vehicle tracking is feasible, even for low quality and low frame rate traffic cameras. Additionally, exploitation of the attributes of neighboring vehicles significantly improves the performance.

URLhttp://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1286380.1286386
DOI10.1145/1286380.1286386