I-35 Austin High-Volume Detector Testbed

In a cooperative effort among multiple TTI research programs, including TransLink, and in cooperation with the TxDOT Austin District and the Transportation Planning and Programming Division, a testbed on I-35 in Austin near downtown was installed. This facility utilizes as much of the existing infrastructure as possible, including existing luminaire poles, an overhead sign bridge, and an existing equipment cabinet. Research activities have required adding two more equipment cabinets to house test equipment and installing conduit to connect cabinets and poles. TTI installed a weather station on-site attached to the overhead sign bridge. Having an adequate baseline system required installing new inductive loops in all southbound lanes of I-35 for the Peek ADR-6000 classifier.

The design and goals of this facility allow for multiple pieces of equipment to be tested, side by side, in a high-volume traffic setting with ground truth available from loops and videos. Served by a communications link, the data from the equipment can be accessed remotely and transferred to the TransLink Gilchrist Laboratory in College Station, where it can be analyzed and stored. This setup allows TxDOT to be more intimately involved in the testing procedures and results since the testbed is within the immediate work area of both district and headquarters personnel.

For communication of video and data, TTI utilizes digital subscriber line (DSL) service over a phone line and the Internet to make information available over the World Wide Web. Technologies recently tested at the I-35 testbed include inductive loop systems, microwave radar, video imaging systems, and acoustic detectors.

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