A framework based on vision sensors for the automatic management of exchange parking areas

This paper proposes a framework for the automatic management of exchange parking areas, usually located in the periphery of large cities. These parks are used for medium/long period stops of private or public vehicles and the subsequent sorting of passengers to public transportation networks. The objective of this paper is to analyze and stress the potential of a framework that exploits only vision sensors, which are very versatile and minimally invasive. Using a visual sensor network and the proposed tracking approach we are able to know and track the position of every bus in the exchange station and to send data to the planning station, which allocates slots for other busses and manages public information. Preliminary results are promising and show the feasibility of the proposed method, so that future research work is directed towards a distributed implementation of the framework with stand-alone and embedded devices under the control of a supervisor. © 2010 IEEE.