Sustainable Traffic Regulation System in Protected Areas: Pilot Technology Testing in National Park in the Czech Republic

Abstract

In the context of nature protection, there is an effort to regulate individual car traffic in protected areas. In the framework of the research, a pilot testing of a vehicle detection and identification system in the Krkonoše National Park was carried out using two selected technologies (license plate recognition and Bluetooth token detection). The research was carried out under conditions of poorer availability of mobile signal for transmission of measured data, lack of electrical power supply, and in challenging climatic conditions in the mountains. The main objective was to verify the applicability and limits of the mentioned technologies under these difficult conditions. For this purpose, two test sites were built: a fixed and a mobile point. Testing at both points was carried out using two basic methods, namely online through continuous data collection from the detectors and on-site through a local survey during the summer of 2022. The parameters evaluated were the reliability of the vehicle identification itself and the reliability of the operation of the individual detection subsystems and the tested system as a whole. The results show that the license plate recognition system using two cameras for the checkpoint shows a high recognition reliability, but it is reduced for some types of vehicles (especially motorcycles and four-wheelers). At the same time, this technology is demanding on energy resources. Detection using a Bluetooth scanner has proven to be highly reliable up to 50 km/h. A reliable power supply is necessary to achieve high reliability, which was a problem at the mobile point. Evaluation of images from cameras with motion detection showed the limits of this technology, which increased with increasing vehicle speed. The system can be used to detect traffic in protected areas, taking into account the limits specified in this article.