How much storage does a city-scale traffic system need?

The Beijing Wangjing reference runs 14 PB for 3,500+ capture devices and 1,000+ parking detectors. Storage scales with device count, legal retention days, and whether full video or violation clips plus pass-by records are kept.

Intelligent Traffic: Evidence the Court Accepts, Roads That Flow

Q: What happens when the network to a junction goes down?

The ITS edge terminal keeps recognizing violations locally and caches records at the junction, then synchronizes when the link returns. Live dispatch and LED updates need the link, so backbone redundancy is part of the network design.

Why Traffic Departments Drown in Video

The original solution lists the failure points of conventional traffic management as car ownership keeps climbing:

Evidence takes hours per caseOfficers scrub raw footage manually for each violation — low efficiency means most offenses are simply never processed.

Evidence chains fall apartA single photo rarely proves a violation. Without linked captures of the approach, the act and the plate, cases collapse on appeal.

Congestion without numbersJunctions jam daily but nobody can say which lane, which hour, which direction — so signal timing and lane policy stay guesswork.

Accidents found too lateNo automatic incident detection means a stalled car or crash sits in a live lane until someone calls it in — the secondary accident is the real killer.

Silos and dead devicesCapture, video, speed and parking systems each keep their own data; meanwhile broken cameras stay broken for weeks because nobody sees device health.

System Architecture

Sensing + edge + platform, per the original design: 9MP capture cameras, radar and LED screens at the roadside; ITS edge terminals recognizing violations locally and caching data through weak networks; one command platform for evidence, analytics, dispatch and device health.

Simplified diagram. Corridor lengths, lane counts and radar placement follow your road geometry — send drawings for a per-junction design.

Six Jobs This System Does

Each card is a module of the original solution, translated into what drivers and officers actually experience.

Every plate, day and nightLPR logs every passing vehicle with plate, type (car, SUV, truck, bus), 60+ brands and daytime color — using no-flash illumination so residents aren't strobed all night, and caching records when the network drops.

Speeding caught and displayedRadar measures live speed, cameras capture the violation and the evidence file builds itself — while the LED screen shows red warnings to speeders and green confirmations to compliant drivers, turning enforcement into visible prevention.

Violations with a full storyLine-pressing, illegal lane changes, wrong-way driving, red-light running, emergency-lane abuse, no seatbelt, phone at the wheel, bus-lane invasion — recognized on highways, expressways, tunnels and junctions, with front/rear camera matching over 250–350 m so large vehicles can't hide the act.

Motorcycles managed kindly firstHelmet-less riding, red-light running, wrong-way motorcycles, overloaded e-bikes and delivery riders are recognized; real-time voice reminders and LED messages close a 'remind — record — manage' loop that changes behavior before fines do.

No-parking zones that speakA camera plus an LED screen is enough: the moment a car stops in a restricted zone, its plate appears on the screen with a warning; most drivers move on within a minute, records accumulate for repeat offenders — prevention instead of after-the-fact tickets.

A city that sees itselfFlow statistics by hour, zone and vehicle type; congestion rankings; tidal-lane suggestions; signal-timing references. Incident detection flags accidents, congestion, snow on the road, abnormal stops and fallen objects, pushes the alarm and pins it on the map for dispatch.

The Numbers That Matter

Key capabilities from the official solution:

9MP industrial capture cameras — no-flash design against light pollution

Front/rear camera matching builds evidence over 250–350 m corridors

Vehicle type, color (daytime) and 60+ brands recognized on passing traffic

Beijing Wangjing reference: 3,500+ capture devices, 1,000+ parking detectors, 14 PB storage

Chongqing reference: 800+ checkpoints, 600+ HD PTZ, city-wide remote enforcement

System Components

These are the equipment roles the solution is built from. Exact models are chosen per site conditions, country requirements and budget — several of our product lines fit each role, so we spec the model list after receiving your requirement list.

Item	What it does
9MP capture cameras + radar + no-flash illumination	The evidence engine: plates, speed, violation frames — sized per lane and mounted per gantry drawing.
Junction panoramic + tracking PTZ	One unit holds the whole junction and auto-tracks incidents its wide view detects.
Highway ultra-long-range PTZ	32MP panorama + 42× detail with 500 m IR — one high point covers kilometres of carriageway at night.
Road & tunnel fixed cameras	Dual-light bullets for continuous coverage between capture points.
ITS edge terminals (UBOX) + LED guidance screens	Local recognition and caching at the junction; screens that warn, guide and publish speeds.
Roadside industrial network	Industrial switches in roadside cabinets survive heat and surges; fiber ring aggregation with 5G fallback where trenching is impossible.
Recording & storage pool	From per-depot NVRs to a centre pool — the Beijing reference runs 14 PB; retention rules drive the disk math.

Item

What it does

9MP capture cameras + radar + no-flash illumination

The evidence engine: plates, speed, violation frames — sized per lane and mounted per gantry drawing.

Junction panoramic + tracking PTZ

One unit holds the whole junction and auto-tracks incidents its wide view detects.

Highway ultra-long-range PTZ

32MP panorama + 42× detail with 500 m IR — one high point covers kilometres of carriageway at night.

Road & tunnel fixed cameras

Dual-light bullets for continuous coverage between capture points.

ITS edge terminals (UBOX) + LED guidance screens

Local recognition and caching at the junction; screens that warn, guide and publish speeds.

Roadside industrial network

Industrial switches in roadside cabinets survive heat and surges; fiber ring aggregation with 5G fallback where trenching is impossible.

Recording & storage pool

From per-depot NVRs to a centre pool — the Beijing reference runs 14 PB; retention rules drive the disk math.

Send corridor drawings, lane counts and the violations you must enforce — we reply with a gantry-by-gantry equipment list and evidence-flow design.

Design Notes & Honest Limits

Read this before you order:

Automated evidence is only worth what your law accepts: calibration certificates for radar, image integrity rules and appeal procedures differ by country — validate the evidence chain with the enforcement authority before buying hardware.
Vehicle color recognition is rated for daytime in the original document — night classification falls back to type and plate; plan enforcement rules accordingly.
Weak-network caching protects data through outages, but live enforcement (LED warnings, dispatch) still needs the link — treat the 5G/fiber budget as part of the system, not an afterthought.
The 250–350 m matching corridors need clean sight lines and correct gantry spacing — bridges, curves and tall vehicles shorten the usable range; we design from your road profile, not from the brochure figure.
LED guidance screens must speak the local language and follow local traffic-sign law (colors, symbols, dwell times) — content templates are part of commissioning, order them with the screens.

FAQ

Can the system issue fines automatically?

It generates the complete evidence package automatically — linked captures, plate, speed, time, location, and the violation classification. Whether that becomes a fine without human review depends on your country's law: most jurisdictions require an officer to validate the evidence before a penalty is issued. The platform's violation-processing module is built exactly for that review step.

Does plate capture work at night without visible flash?

Yes — the 9MP capture cameras use a no-flash illumination design specifically to avoid light pollution and driver glare. The trade-off stated honestly: color recognition is daytime-rated, so night records classify by plate and vehicle type instead of color.

What happens when the network to a junction goes down?

The ITS edge terminal keeps working: violations are recognized locally and records are cached at the junction, then synchronized when the link returns — the original design explicitly covers weak-network environments. What you lose during the outage is live dispatch and LED updates, which is why backbone redundancy (ring or 5G fallback) is part of our network design.

Can it manage motorcycles and e-bikes, not just cars?

Yes — a dedicated module recognizes helmet-less riders, motorcycle red-light running and wrong-way riding, overloaded e-bikes and delivery vehicles. The design philosophy is 'remind — record — manage': real-time voice and LED reminders first, records for repeat management — well suited to markets where two-wheelers dominate traffic.

How much storage does a city-scale system need?

The honest reference: Beijing Wangjing runs 14 PB for 3,500+ capture devices and 1,000+ parking detectors. Your number scales from three inputs — device count, image/video retention days required by law, and whether you store full video or violation clips plus pass-by records. A district pilot of 200 devices typically starts in the hundreds of TB; we calculate it line by line in the BOQ.