Abstract
Traffic flows on major highways have now reached the level that any disruption in flow can lead to severe congestion. Apart from the increased of risk of accidents caused by the formation of queues and shock waves, the increase in journey times for road users represents a significant cost to be community. There is a need for systems that can monitor the current state of traffic along critical lengths of highway and report deteriorations in traffic conditions. This paper describes the use of powerful image processing subsystem hosted by a micro computer to provide continuous monitoring in the images from a TV camera.