
Intelligent Pedestrian Traffic Lights Recognizes Pedestrians’ Intent to Cross the Road
Implementation by the end of 2020

Vienna has found an intelligent solution to reducing the delays and annoyance pedestrians experience in the Austrian capital every time they want to cross the road. And that solution is to make the traffic lights which control the crossings intelligent enough themselves to know when the lights need to change to green.
Being a traffic light in #Vienna #Austria can be very exciting. Following the #Ampelpaerchen revamp, pedestrian signals in Vienna have now learned to think https://t.co/OYKSTK5fCH @tugraz_csbme @Stadt_Wien #traffic #safety #computervision #pedestrians (© Günther Pichler GmbH) pic.twitter.com/ZfV2ui6lzC
— TU Graz (@tugraz) May 27, 2019
It has been developed by researchers at TU Graz’s Institute of Computer Graphics and Vision for the capital’s Municipal Department 33 and will bring an end to button pushing at pedestrian crossings in the city. Additionally, it will reduce the amount of time wasted waiting for the lights to change from a red image of a walking man to a green one, and so signal that it’s safe for people to cross the road.
Camera Picks up Pedestrians’ Intention to Cross Road
The camera-based system is designed to pick up that pedestrians are approaching as soon as they enter an eight by five meter field. And within one second it will make an initial estimation of how many of them intend to cross the road. A more reliable estimation a second later will trigger a signal to the pedestrian light controller, causing it to react as it would to the button being pushed. This will ensure the traffic lights turn red, while pedestrians are given the green light to cross.