A microprocessor based device for traffic investigation

This paper presents an 8-bit microprocessor based measurement equipment allowing acquisition, pre-elaboration and recording of numerical data collected near a motorway bridge for traffic investigation. The realisation of such a device was necessary to carry out the research proposed by the ECSC (European Cool and Steel Community) for a standardization. This research, developed parallel in the countries of the ECSC, has been committed to the Istituto di Scienza delle Costruzioni of the University of Pisa (Italy). For this research, we have executed the following operations: 1. The identification of vehicles heavier than some fixed weight (motor lorries); 2. The measurement of velocity and time interval (distance) between two successive vehicles.