If information on existence of vehicles in the road network within a relevant area is available, it would be useful for developing optimal traffic management policy. Photographs taken from artificial satellites could provide policy makers with important information on real condition of traffic flow, congestion or parking situation. A preliminary study on satellite photographs revealed, however, that the commercially provided satellite photograph lacks the sharpness needed to distinguish each vehicle automatically by image analysis technology as yet, although the rough condition of road traffic can be read by human eyes. It is expected that the time will soon come when pictures taken by artificial satellites with higher resolution can be obtained easily. As a preparatory study use was made of aerial photographs taken for the purpose of aerial mapping. For the covering abstract see ITRD E134653.
Abstract