The weekend found us staying at a hotel in Makati in order to be near the recital venue for our daughter. Our room afforded a nice view of the surrounding areas (we were on the 29th floor) but the traffic engineer in me gave in to the temptation to take photos of a major intersection nearby – the Gil Puyat Avenue – Ayala Avenue intersection. These are two of the most prominent streets in the Makati CBD and strategically located at one corner is the Makati City Central Post Office and a stone’s throw away is the Makati City Central Fire Station. At another corner is the RCBC tower that hosts foreign embassies including the offices of the European Union.

Intersection of Gil Puyat Avenue (formerly Buendia Avenue) and Ayala Avenue

A view of the skyway in the distance

The view of the intersection gave some flashbacks to times when I was a student and a young researcher who had to find good vantage points for collecting traffic data particularly for intersections. Aside from the movements and the corresponding counts, the junction configuration can clearly be seen from the top and useful for developing models for analysis. There was a time when we coveted such views for traffic simulation. You can can install a camera so that you can record hours of footage to use for data extraction. The video recording also allowed one to revisit the footage in case there are questions regarding the data. The same videos can also be used for image processing for more automated, even intelligent or smart data collection using computers.

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