Scaling Traffic Insights with AI and Language Model-Powered Camera Systems for Data-Driven Transportation Decision Making
Accurate, scalable traffic monitoring is critical for real-time and long-term transportation management, particularly during disruptions such as natural disasters, large construction projects, or major policy changes like New York City's first-in-the-nation congestion pricing program. However, widespread sensor deployment remains limited due to high installation, maintenance, and data management costs. While traffic cameras offer a cost-effective alternative, existing video analytics struggle with dynamic camera viewpoints and massive data volumes from large camera networks. This study presents an end-to-end AI-based framework leveraging existing traffic camera infrastructure for high-resolution, longitudinal analysis at scale. A fine-tuned YOLOv11 model, trained on localized urban scenes, extracts multimodal traffic density and classification metrics in real time. To address inconsistencies from non-stationary pan-tilt-zoom cameras, we introduce a novel graph-based viewpoint normalization method. A domain-specific large language model was also integrated to process massive data from a 24/7 video stream to generate frequent, automated summaries of evolving traffic patterns, a task far exceeding manual capabilities. We validated the system using over 9 million images from roughly 1,000 traffic cameras during the early rollout of NYC congestion pricing in 2025. Results show a 9% decline in weekday passenger vehicle density within the Congestion Relief Zone, early truck volume reductions with signs of rebound, and consistent increases in pedestrian and cyclist activity at corridor and zonal scales. Experiments showed that example-based prompts improved LLM's numerical accuracy and reduced hallucinations. These findings demonstrate the framework's potential as a practical, infrastructure-ready solution for large-scale, policy-relevant traffic monitoring with minimal human intervention.