Low-Cost Acoustic Sensing Framework for Multivehicle Detection in Complex Urban Traffic

Abstract

This letter presents a low-cost acoustic sensing framework for vehicle detection and counting in complex urban environments with significant ambient noise. The proposed system is designed for deployment on roadside sensing nodes equipped with single-channel microphones, enabling scalable and continuous traffic monitoring. Unlike existing approaches that rely on controlled conditions or isolated vehicle recordings, the framework targets real-world urban scenarios with multiple simultaneous vehicles and diverse environmental noise. Acoustic data were collected from 20 urban locations in Melbourne, Australia, covering multilane roads and heterogeneous traffic conditions with up to three concurr..