Remote Automatic Traffic Counters (ATCs) work on the same data collection principle as standard ATCs with the added feature of live data checks. Within the ATC box there is a modem that can be connected 24/7 to our office based control room and the data can be downloaded remotely. This gives us the opportunity to check the sites daily without physically going to site as well as proactively responding to issues on site.
The setup of the equipment is done in the office, the equipment is allocated to site and technicians install it out in the field as usual.
Once operational checks can be done in two ways: Site scan or download.
Site Scan Checks
Site scan gives us the basic unit information such as the sensor balance as well as battery and memory levels shown below:
This is a very quick overview of the sites that would give us a basic idea of the data collected.
Site Download
The other way to check the site equipment is to connect to each unit and download the data as if an engineer were on site. This process produces an Ec0 file. We connect to the unit, stop it, download the data and restart it.
This process takes a little longer (several minutes per site) however it gives us a detailed picture of the data quality and of course we don’t have to send engineers to site, reducing costs, increasing uptime and improving safety.
We normally scan sites daily and perform a full download once a week. If a site has any issues we would carry out a download more often to ensure problems don’t repeat.
Once we have collected all the data for a survey project we can “stop” the sites remotely before the ATC equipment is physically collected by our field engineers.
