ITS for perceptive and communicating motorways: a focus on optical fiber-based WIM for pursuing smart roads

This M.Sc. thesis is focused on ITS for road transport, in particular on highways and motorways, from their origins to present applications. Their recent history makes them partially framed on an Italian and European legislative framework. The general architecture of communications between ITS is introduced, in particular the information sent to users by the infrastructure and vice versa. Subsequently, chapters concerning the automatic identification of road accidents are elaborated through the recall of specific algorithms, such as the well-dated California algorithm, developed in the late 1980s up, to most recent applications where a more capillary and detailed sensing of flows running on motorways or on highways can be pursued. Finally, the analysis and the assessment od effectiveness of one specific application for making more these infrastructures more perceptive and communicating, i.e. the dynamic weighing systems of vehicles, are included; this is carried out by also considering the tests carried out in the measurement laboratory of the Politecnico di Torino on a sensor made using an optical fiber specially modified for this purpose to evaluate its accuracy and the possibility of practical use. The final goal is to make such roads perceptive and alerting through ITS and the focus on optical fiber based WIM for pursuing smart roads results to be surely and added value when relevant in the specific application.