Why a Traffic Data Platform?
Why is an explicit traffic data management platform required? Are there special requirements that make it inevitable to use a specialised platform? Why not just store and process the data locally?
Benefits and Use Cases
- Long-term recording: Critical traffic scenarios are rare. Months of continuous recording are needed to capture enough examples of accidents, near-misses, or unusual patterns.
- Time-aware analysis: Traffic behaviour differs by hour, weekday, season, and special events. Queries must be fast across large time ranges, which requires a time-series-optimised database.
- Live and historical in one place: Operators need a real-time view for monitoring and alerts AND historical data for research, reporting, and validation.
- Multiple sources, one interface: Cameras, detector loops, GPS trackers, and weather stations produce different formats. A platform normalises and integrates them into a single queryable store.
- Spatial queries: Trajectory data is inherently spatial. Counting objects crossing a line, finding all events within a polygon, or clustering stop points requires PostGIS-level geometry support.
- Compression and Retention: Raw high-frequency data grows quickly. Automatic compression and retention policies keep the database lean and performant without manual intervention.
