I’ve seen the number of induction coils increase drastically over the years in The Netherlands. They are quite easily recognizable, as there’s typically a solar panel on a pole, that appears to provide power to the system.
Considering there’s a wide variety of vehicles on the road, surely each variant must have (slightly) different characteristics when passing over the coil; especially when in a specific place at a specific time.
And given that they are situated at highway exits (see picture) or after entrances, and road users unable to exit and enter elsewhere, it would be trivial to track the bulk of a vehicle’s trip.
This in context of ALPRs (in different forms) being in place at strategical locations (large junctions or at bridges or tunnels, and parking), and the address of vehicle’s owner; you’d be able to connect the dots, and end up with a pretty complete picture.
I imagine that this is for traffic statistics and modeling, and isn’t able to distinguish between different models of car
It’s undoubtedly used for that too, but similar to cameras supposedly limited to traffic analysis, this system could also double as surveillance infrastructure. The readings might vary per vehicle passing over the coils: different concentrations of metal at different positions, the duration of a vehicle within range (which could be an indicator for length, speed, or both), etc. Measure these characteristics at many points along the way, while reading vehicle license plates at strategic locations, and it seems you’d have a pretty robust surveillance concept.
not very well though, while the raw data can vary car to car, they only use a simple vehicle detection count, and they could technically distinguish between large trucks, trailers, busses and family cars, but not very well and it would be based on signal duration so the traffic flow speed would have to be known too. A small electric car might have a similar signature to a large diesel truck just based on the inductive mass, and a hatchback could have the same signal duration as a bus if it’s in traffic.
There’s no useful data there for deeper analysis or correlation other than “hmm, road use is up in this area, increase road maintenance there in the next budget” or, “hmm, that intersection upgrade downstream has caused more traffic than predicted upstream”, or “hmm, the timing on these fixed intersection lights need to be re-assessed or upgraded to automatic lights”
If they wanted to track car movements, they’d just use ALPR like everyone else
ALPRs are controversial, and governments know it. This concept would however be abstract enough for most (even around here it seems) , while effectively accomplishing the same.
This is just traffic monitoring, it’s been around literary for longer than you probably have been alive and its just counting cars, nothing nefarious. It helps with road designs
Cameras have also been around longer than I’ve been alive, but they are no longer recording on looping tapes either: their output is increasingly analyzed by automated systems, and the same could definitely apply to these.
It’s not the cameras that are tracking you, it’s the machine vision that reads licence plates, and that has not been around longer than you’ve been alive.
All these loops can detect is if a massive chunk of metal moves over them, no PII. Knowing how many cars use a road is critical in knowing if a road is congested or not, and that helps make roads better for everyone. It’s not part of the surveillance machine. This kind of sensor is no more nefarious than the 100 year old sensor in your toilet that stops filling the tank when it is full.
Take your tinfoil hat off.
It’s not the cameras that are tracking you, it’s the machine vision that reads licence plates, and that has not been around longer than you’ve been alive.
Nothing in this statement contradicts anything I’ve said.
As for the other statements, it provides no real counterarguments as to why it cannot work. Just a few years ago there weren’t nearly as many of these sensors, and roads were perfectly functional too. Just substantiate how you can so definitively state that. And that “sensor” in my toilet is just a floater mechanically connected to a valve, so I don’t know how that compares.
Take another shot.
This is not the high tech you think it is.
Is it possible they are pressure plates for monitoring traffic, with a view to controlling traffic signals etc.
As opposed to the coils (some sort of charging thing for EVs)?
The easier explanation would just be counting vehicles for traffic statistics and management.
It would be easier, but might not be the full picture.
The readings will have an extremely low signal to noise ratio, at best you coils differentiate a truck from car by length of the pulse, but with speed already being ±30% variability any small difference in cars inherent properties (size in length or amount of metal) would quickly be reduced to nothing. Then for every make and model you have thousands of cars already, I don’t see how you could possibly differentiate between those even in theory.
If I had to guess there is probably a traffic light at the end of that off ramp. They’re probably checking traffic patterns to determine the timing of the lights for high traffic times.
The solar panel suggest this device is not connected to anything, if it is connected to a traffic light it can share its power source.
This device just stores the number of cars passed in its onboard storage which will be retrieved later
I didn’t say it was connected. I said it was helping them adjust the timers for the light. Many lights in my area aren’t controlled by active sensors.
No, they are also at places where there isn’t any traffic signals nearby.
Then it’s probably a sensor to help plan road repair and development. They want to know how many cars are rolling through to budget accordingly.
Why would anyone use induction coils for tracking when TPMS transponder tracking is cheaper, easier, and less visible?
Even assuming there’s a way to uniquely identify vehicles based on their induction signature, digging up roads seems like a literally unbelievable amount of work by comparison.
