By Shahab Khokhar
The first traffic light in the world was installed on Dec 10, 1868, at the Parliament Square in Londin, UK.
Over the last more than 150 years, cities and states have been investing in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) to make roadways safer, smarter, and more efficient. And we can see the difference.
Despite the monumental strides, our roads still face significant challenges. In the United States alone, congestion measured in annual hours of delay has increased by 144% between 1993 and 2017 in the largest 100 urbanized areas, far outpacing population growth in these areas (source: US Department of Transportation).
Congestion remains a persistent problem across the globe, contributing to economic losses and increased emissions, highlighting the critical need for even more precise, scalable, and data-rich solutions to tackle today’s transportation challenges.
That’s where LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging)—a technology long associated with autonomous vehicles—is making an exciting impact.
More recently, directional LiDAR systems in particular are proving to be game changers in both intersection and highway ITS deployments, adding a new dimension of awareness to ITS solutions.
The Rise of LiDAR in ITS
LiDAR uses laser beams to create detailed 3D maps of the environment. In ITS applications, this means unparalleled insight into vehicle movement, pedestrian behavior, and roadway usage patterns.
Unlike cameras, LiDAR is unaffected by challenging light or weather conditions like glare, heavy rain, snow, fog, or even complete darkness, and unlike radar and inductive loops, it delivers centimeter-level precision and the ability to classify various road users, from cars and trucks to pedestrians and cyclists.
This fundamental difference makes LiDAR an invaluable asset for ITS, offering a robust and privacy-safe solution for monitoring traffic, detecting incidents, and ultimately, enhancing road safety.
Traditionally, ITS deployments have used rotating lidars, which offer a 360-degree field of view. While this might seem beneficial at first glance for general environmental mapping, their spinning nature can lead to some compromises.
Rotating lidars can be power-hungry, produce large amounts of noisy or redundant data, and struggle with vertical resolution—making them less than ideal for long-range, high-speed traffic environments like highways. Their mechanical wear and tear also contribute to higher maintenance.
Why Directional Lidars Make a Critical Difference
Directional lidars, on the other hand, focus their field of view on specific areas of interest. This targeted approach unlocks a host of benefits that are crucial for high-speed highway environments:
- Targeted Coverage: Monitor lanes, intersections, or entry/exit ramps with precision—no need to filter out irrelevant data from the sides or behind the device. By concentrating their laser pulses on a specific zone, directional lidars deliver significantly higher point cloud density and resolution within that area.
- Higher Data Quality: With denser point clouds and better vertical resolution, directional lidars offer more actionable insights. This translates to incredibly precise object detection, classification, and tracking, even for small or fast-moving objects. On a highway, where every millisecond and every centimeter matters, this heightened precision is paramount for identifying potential hazards like debris, stalled vehicles, pedestrian outside of vehicle or wrong-way drivers with exceptional accuracy.
- Lower Bandwidth and Processing Requirements: By eliminating unnecessary data capture, they make real-time processing faster and more efficient. With a targeted and focused scan, directional lidars can update their perception data more rapidly. This speed is critical for real-time traffic management and incident detection on highways, enabling quicker alerts and more immediate responses to critical situations.
- Cost and Energy Efficiency: Less movement, less maintenance, and lower power draw compared to rotating systems. Directional lidars often feature solid-state like minimal-moving-part designs, inherently making them more robust and less prone to mechanical wear and tear than rotating systems. This translates to higher uptime, lower maintenance costs, and greater longevity—essential qualities for critical infrastructure deployed in harsh outdoor environments.
- Seamless Integration and Scalability: Directional lidars are generally more compact and easier to integrate into existing infrastructure. Their focused nature also simplifies data processing, as there’s less irrelevant data to sift through. This ease of integration and processing makes them highly scalable for widespread deployment across vast highway networks.
These features are especially valuable for highway monitoring, where range, accuracy, and reliability are non-negotiable.
ITS Needs a Complete, Integrated Approach: Seyond’s SIMPL Solution
As ITS continues to evolve, isolated hardware components are no longer enough. Operators and municipalities need end-to-end solutions that integrate sensing, data processing, and analytics into one seamless package. This is precisely what Seyond offers with its SIMPL (Seyond ITS Management Platform) solution.
SIMPL is a comprehensive, LiDAR-powered platform designed to empower cities, departments of transportation, and tolling agencies with unparalleled tools for real-time traffic data collection, decision-making, and integration. It goes beyond simple detection, offering sophisticated perception software that can detect and classify all road users, track their trajectories, and provide detailed data on counts, speed, size, and safety. This rich, real-time data is invaluable for:
- Quickly deploying roadside lidar systems: SIMPL is plug-and-play ITS that scales—from pilot programs to nationwide highway infrastructure.
- Analyzing traffic patterns in real time: Optimizing signal timing based on real-time traffic flow, reducing congestion, and improving travel times.
- Detecting incidents on highways automatically: Swiftly identifying accidents, stalled vehicles, congestion, or even wrong-way driving, enabling rapid emergency response.
- Feeding accurate data into broader transportation management systems: Gathering long-term traffic data for informed decisions on road expansion, maintenance, and future infrastructure projects.
- Privacy Protection: Crucially, SIMPL’s LiDAR technology captures 3D point cloud data, ensuring the privacy of individuals by not recording any personally identifiable information like facial features.
Falcon and Robin W: Directional Lidars Built for ITS
At the heart of the SIMPL solution are Seyond’s cutting-edge directional lidars, the Falcon and Robin W. These sensors are not merely components; they are the foundation of the solution that meets the demanding requirements of ITS applications, especially on highways:
- Seyond Falcon: The Falcon series, particularly the Falcon K, is a high-precision, long-range directional lidar ideal for highway traffic monitoring and tolling systems. It boasts an ultra-long detection and classification range of up to 250 meters (820 feet) for all vehicle types and 100 meters (325 feet) for pedestrians with 98% accuracy. (https://simpl.seyond.com/resources#accuracy-reports)
This extended range is critical for highway scenarios, allowing for early detection of distant obstacles and events. Its image-grade resolution and dynamic Region of Interest (ROI) focusing feature ensure unparalleled clarity and precision in key detection zones.
Falcon operates at 1550nm, at this wavelength the lidar is less susceptible to glare from direct sunlight. In real life this means exceptional performance while looking directly at the sun.
The Falcon’s compact size and robust, automotive-grade design have undergone rigorous reliability testing, ensuring stable and reliable performance in diverse environmental conditions, including extreme temperatures, dust, and moisture.
More than 500,000 Falcon lidars have been deployed globally.
- Seyond Robin W: Designed for broader, multi-lane coverage and precise vulnerable road users (VRU) detection at closer range, the Robin W combines directional targeting with wide field-of-view capabilities. It offers an ultra-wide field of view (120°x70°) with an impressive detection and classification range of up to 90 meters (295 feet) for all vehicle types and 60 meters (195 feet) for pedestrians as well as a minimal blind zone down to 0.1 meters. This makes the Robin W ideal for pedestrian detection at dense crosswalks, merging lanes, arterial roads, and blind spot detection.Its image-grade resolution and high point cloud density enable superior perception for lane change assistance and side collision detection. Like the Falcon, the Robin W is designed for durability and low power consumption, making it easily integrable into various ITS deployment scenarios.
Both sensors deliver:
- Exceptional accuracy 24/7
- Exceptional performance in all lighting and weather conditions,
- Seamless integration with traffic light controllers for actuated traffic signals,
- And reliable operation with minimal maintenance.
Whether you’re optimizing traffic flow, enhancing incident detection, or collecting road user classification data, Seyond’s directional lidars provide the precision and reliability today’s ITS demands.
Looking Ahead
Intelligent Transportation Systems are no longer just about managing traffic—they’re about anticipating risks, optimizing infrastructure, and protecting lives. Directional lidar, paired with smart platforms like SIMPL, is unlocking a new era of roadway intelligence. With solutions like Falcon and Robin W, Seyond is helping cities and states build highways that are not only smarter—but safer and more efficient for everyone.