| CPC G08G 1/04 (2013.01) [G08G 1/0145 (2013.01); G08G 1/052 (2013.01); G08G 1/08 (2013.01)] | 21 Claims |
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1. A method of estimating a position of a boundary of a queue of traffic, the queue extending along a roadway, comprising:
using distributed acoustic sensing to generate, as a function of time and of position along the roadway, an acoustic signal representing acoustic vibration at a sensing optical fibre that extends along the roadway;
determining, by a composite movement detector, from the acoustic signal, composite movement data representing average traffic speed values of all vehicles for a plurality of locations along the roadway;
detecting, by a queue signature detector, in the composite movement data, a queue signature of either slowing down of the vehicles as they approach the boundary of the queue, or speeding up of the vehicles as they advance from the boundary of the queue by comparing a portion of the composite movement data with a plurality of queue boundary models, the queue boundary models defining patterns of speed change of vehicles approaching or advancing from the boundary of the queue, and determining that the portion of the composite movement data matches one of the plurality of queue boundary models;
estimating the position of the boundary of the queue of traffic from the detected queue signature; and
based on the estimated position of the boundary of the queue of traffic, automatically controlling, by a road traffic signal controller, a road traffic sign to display a warning to traffic that is travelling along the roadway towards the estimated position of the boundary of the queue.
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