Improving road safety through artificial intelligence-based systems is now crucial turning smart cities into a reality. Under this highly relevant and extensive heading, an approach is proposed to improve vehicle detection in smart crosswalks using machine learning models. Contrarily to classic fuzzy classifiers, machine learning models do not require the readjustment of labels that depend on the location of the system and the road conditions. Several machine learning models were trained and tested using real traffic data taken from urban scenarios in both Portugal and Spain. These include random forest, time-series forecasting, multi-layer perceptron, support vector machine, and logistic regression models. A deep reinforcement learning agent, based on a state-of-the-art double-deep recurrent Q-network, is also designed and compared with the machine learning models just mentioned. Results show that the machine learning models can efficiently replace the classic fuzzy classifier.
Keywords: machine learning; pedestrian crossings accidents; smart road safety; time series forecasting; vehicle detection.