Here are a few of the projects we have undertaken in the last ten years.

www.tallyphone.co.uk

Demand from Lancashire County Council led us to develop a low-cost replacement for their manual traffic counters. The software runs on basic mobile phones, and allows an enumerator to carry out classified counts, which are then downloaded to a PC using a standard USB cable.

Once downloaded, the data can be exported to Excel, either in a raw format where each observation has its own record, or in a summarised form, comparable to what most existing manual counters provide.

The software is very flexible, and allows the user to create their own classifications, and other survey parameters.

Initially we were even more ambitious with the functionality of the system, and actually had the phones uploading the data as it was being collected, but this meant the client would have needed SIM cards and contracts for all their phones which, presented difficulties with departmental budgets.

The software was implemented using Microsoft VB.NET for the PC software, and the Java (Mobile Edition) Wireless Toolkit for the main phone application.

One of the most common survey types CTS Traffic and Transportation is asked to undertake is the Classified Turning Count.

Enumerators standing by the side of the road, or watching recorded video in the office, will count how many vehicles take each turning movement at a junction. They also identify to which class the vehicles belong, such as cars, light goods vehicles, public service vehicles etc.

Before adopting TCLF, the data arrived back to the office and the data processing team would input it into Microsoft Excel.

Ensuring the counts balanced across multiple linking junctions was very labourious and exposed staff to what they came to call 'scrolling numbers syndrome'. Excel provides a four way window split, to reduce the amount of scrolling between sections of data, but it was still too hard.

TCLF employs a graphical approach to data handling so it's easy to see where data problems exist. They can be corrected by hovering over the appropriate section of data, and using the mousewheel. Since you can always see the context in which you are working, making adjustments is very much simplified, and the time taken dramatically reduced.

There are many other features available in TCLF, and now other organisations including Lancashire County Council are also using TCLF for much post-survey work.

Once the data looks how you want it to, exporting it to Excel is simple. Reports can be customised, and may even include diagrams of junctions. If you are interested in TCLF, we can arrange to send you trial software, so you can determine whether it suits your needs before you commit to a purchase.

The software was implemented using Microsoft VB.NET.

We were asked by a client to research and identify a suitable replacement for their video recording equipment. At that point they used DVRs designed primarily for security applications to record traffic surveys and to later view and enumerate them.

We came up a creative solution that not only met their needs, but offered even greater cost savings for their office operations. Our bespoke design would allow them to record video into a format that could be quickly saved to DVDs for their clients, which wasn't previously possible. It could also be used to syncronise up to 10 videos to the second, which is very useful for certain classes of survey.

Finally our custom solution allowed them to enumerate video using the same keyboard that was being used to control the video playback. This meant that enumerators simply need to press a key to record a vehicle, and the software automatically takes the time from the video. This saves a lot to time, and eliminates the use of paper pads, and the inherent data input errors.

The hardware used was a fanless, mini-ITX unit plus a video capture card. The software was implemented using fully open source code libraries, using Python in conjunction with the Ubuntu Linux operating system.