Rijkswaterstaat Completes Successful Trial of OptaSense Traffic Monitoring Solution

Rijkswaterstaat uses inductive loops extensively on their national highway system for providing real time “lane signalling” traffic information. Traffic information from inductive loops currently feeds approximately 6,000 gantries and 15,000 overhead lane signals across the road network to warn road users of traffic jams. Due to the high costs of ownership and operational drawbacks associated with inductive loops, Rijkswaterstaat initiated an extensive program to investigate alternative technologies. The OptaSense solution was selected due to its unique ability to convert existing roadside optical fiber into an intelligent sensor delivering highly accurate traffic information using roadside technology that overcomes the operational issues associated with inductive loops. As part of the project, OptaSense delivered a live data feed to a demonstrator to prove that the OptaSense solution could provide a viable real-time feed for Rijkswaterstaat’s lane signals. Cisco Systems delivered edge computing for (near) real-time high-volume data transport to their Kinetic cloud platform for data analytics. Additionally, the performance of the OptaSense solution was validated by an independent research organisation who concluded that the information delivered by OptaSense replicated the existing inductive loop technology to a high standard.