The Norwegian Public Road Administration together with Trafsys testing new fiber optic technology for increased safety and road accessibility – Trafsense

Trafsense is a monitoring system with a unique time and space resolution combined with low lifetime cost, also for long stretches of road. The performance is independent of external factors such as line of sight, weather, tunnels, changing light conditions or smoke.

The Lyderhorn tunnel will have the world’s first pilot installation of a fiber optic sensor that automatically measures the position, velocity, direction and lane for each vehicle throughout the tunnel. The measurements are made using fiber optic technology, measuring reflected light from fiber optic cables micro-trenched into the tarmac.

Trafsense monitors traffic by reading precise and detailed information on every vehicle: Lane changes, queue formation, stopped vehicle and ghost drivers. The real-time information creates a foundation for automatic event detection and alarms that are relayed to traffic operators.

During April 2022 fiber optic sensor cables were installed in the westbound tube of the Lyderhorn tunnel. The tunnel, 1115m long, was chosen as pilot location due to high traffic levels of more than 20.000 vehicles per day per tube. The tunnel is already equipped with a camera-based automatic incident detection system, which will be an important tool in evaluating the Trafsense system. Pilot testing of Trafsense will be performed over a long period of time in order to expose the system to different traffic and weather conditions throughout the year.

More information is available on the NPRA home page: Statens vegvesen