Paid help required from UK Access Guru

[simonsjames]

Hi,

I'm looking for some help, and am happy to talk a commercial rate as this is not going to be a one liner !.

I am looking to capture and record data from a vehicle access barrier, to monitor time and date of traffic movements. The electronics in the barrier already generate a signal everytime a vehicle passes over a sensor. I'm also pretty competent with access, but the bit I can't do is:-

To liaise with the barrier supplier, and make up a cable that can plug into the back of a PC running 24/7 with the application running. record every time a signal is sent (or it might be a circuit is broken - the manufacturer will advise us) and store in in a table. tblTraffic. with fields, ID(autonumber) date and time (as seperate fields). The rest I can handle, its the physical connection, and data capture from say the serial or USB port I can't do !. UK based, as the need to chat on the phone etc would be best, and posting of a cable etc.

Many thanks

Simon James.

 

[IFELSETHEN]

I taught this type of stuff in college. Best to use a serial connection. I developed a serial server for a lab. It wasn't that bad. Lots of serial data code out there an examples.
John

 

[Tranman]

Simon,
I work for the Kansas Dept of Transportation. There are all kinds of off-the-shelf products that do what you seem to want to be doing (plus lots of other stuff you may not have considered yet.)

We buy most of our traffic sensing gear from a company called Diamond Traffic Products. They have a couple of what we refer to as "boxes" (product names are Phoenix and Unicorn, that can function as remote sensors, either with a PC permanently connected, or you can take a laptop out and plug into a serial port on the box and upload the data, or if there is a phone line handy, you can dialup via a modem and connect to the box.

These boxes can use input from hoses, piezo loops; etc. and cost about $1500 or so. There are solar panels available so you don't have to deal with batteries. They also do vehicle classification sensing, telling you how many motorcycles, trucks, cars, semitrailers; etc. pass your sensors, vehicle direction, speed, length, and so forth.

This may be overkill, but we have worked with vehicle counting/classification problems for many years, and without a fairly sophisticated counter, it can be quite difficult to differentiate between, let's say, an auto pulling a trailer, and a 3-axle truck. Then again, maybe you really don't care.

I think D.T.P. is at

http://www.diamondtraffic.com

Good luck.
Paul (Tranman)

 

[simonsjames]

Many thanks for the help and advice, I shal contact diamond.

All the best,

Simon