A traffic flow detection system combining optical flow and shadow removal

Traffic flow detection plays an important role in Intelligent Transportation Systems(ITS). Video based traffic flow detection system is the most widely used strategy in ITS. Under this circumstance, we design and implement a video based traffic flow detection system which is called MyTD in this paper. MyTD takes advantages of both shadow removal and optical flow algorithms. Firstly, we introduce the current development of ITS and focus on the video based traffic detection technology, which is the key to ITS. Secondly, a shadow removal algorithm combining information in both RGB and HSV color spaces is proposed. Thirdly, based on the Iterative Pyramidal LK Optical Flow Algorithm, a vehicle tracking function is realized by OpenCV, as well as a Connected Components Labeling function and the vehicle counting function. Finally, MyTD is implemented and tested based on the algorithm presented above. Experimental results show the outstanding performance of our method comparing with traditional optical flow algorithms.