STRIDE Project Selected as Finalist for TRB Signal Systems Big Data Challenge

By Thomas Chase and Shoaib Samandar/North Carolina State University

The 2019 summer meeting of the Traffic Signal Systems Committee (TSSC) of the TRB was themed “Big Data Analytics applied to Signalized Intersections” and provided a venue for researchers and professionals to apply their expertise to help mitigate the identified problems using high resolution traffic signal datasets.

The committee hosted a big data challenge where high-resolution traffic signal datasets were provided to the participants. Requirements of the competition were divided into two major parts of a) development of an algorithm to assist the decision making of transportation stakeholders (traffic signal managers), and b) development of a visualization tool for the developed methodology.

The TSSC Challenge 2019 was open to communities across the globe. Including North Carolina State University (NC State), around 25 teams participated in the challenge. Teams were required to submit a report documenting the developed algorithm(s), visualization, and final comments about the insights gained from the competition. The top three teams were selected to present at the mid-year TSSC meeting at Woods Hole, Falmouth, MA during August 6-8, 2019.

NC State’s team identified an Automated Traffic Signal Performance Measure (ATSPM) and developed two algorithms that could provide better estimates of the measure. NC State’s team was selected among the final three teams invited to present at the traffic signal mid-year meeting at Falmouth, MA.

Shoaib Samandar, who was the 2018 STRIDE Student of the Year, led the effort and presented at the conference on behalf of the entire NC State team. The first, second and third places will be announced during the committee meeting of the traffic signal committee at the TRB’s 99th annual meeting that will be held sometime in January 12-16, 2020.  The full NCSU team includes:

  • Shoaib Samandar, Ph.D. Student
  • Ishtiak Ahmed, Ph.D. Student
  • Taehun Lee, Ph.D. Student
  • Sumit Toshniwal, Master’s Student
  • Pravek Dwivedi, Master’s Student
  • Thomas Chase, STRIDE Project PI, Senior Research Associate (ITRE)
  • Nagui Rouphail, STRIDE Project Co-PI, Distinguished University Professor

Additional information:

Full Submission Link: https://github.com/0C34N5/NCSU_TSSC2019

Report Report Link: https://github.com/0C34N5/NCSU_TSSC2019/blob/master/NCSU_Final_Report.pdf

Visualization: https://public.tableau.com/profile/thomas.chase#!/vizhome/NCSUTSSCBigDataChallenge-ATSPMApproachDelay/Story1?publish=yes