Researchers
Reginald Souleyrette
David Veneziano
About the research
USE OF REMOTE SENSING TO IDENTIFY ACCESS ELEMENTS FOR SAFETY ANALYSIS Remote sensing promises to reduce cost of data collection at large scales. A state the size of Iowa maintains over 100,000 miles of road, with the state Department of Transportation alone responsible for over 10,000 of the most densely traveled highways. Clearly at these magnitudes, in situ (field based) systematic data collection for roadway attributes is expensive. The objective of this project is to study the potential of remotely sensing techniques to reduce the cost of data collection required in access management programs, and enable systematic identification of priority areas for access management improvements.
EVALUATING REMOTELY SENSED IMAGES FOR USE IN INVENTORYING ROADWAY INFRASTRUCTURE FEATURES The main objective of this research was to evaluate the use of remotely sensed images as a method to facilitate accurate and rapid collection of large quantities of inventory data. Images collected from either an airplane or satellite can be collected fairly rapidly for large areas without locating on-road or interfering with traffic. With the launching of the IKONOS satellite, resolutions of 1 meter can be practically obtained from space. Image resolution of as high as 1-inch are possible with aerial photography. Aircraft can be flown at higher altitudes for lower resolutions. Since cost typically decreases as resolution decreases, one of the goals of the research was to test images at different levels of resolution to make recommendations on the minimum necessary to collect specific inventory features. This is especially important since many agencies already have access to low resolution images such as the USGS orthophoto quarter quads. Besides the advantage of more rapid data collection, use of remote sensing may allow collection of data which was previously difficult to obtain from conventional methods.