{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,30]],"date-time":"2026-04-30T01:35:06Z","timestamp":1777512906806,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":20,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"10","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,5,20]],"date-time":"2020-05-20T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1589932800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Vehicle detection from satellite imagery can support different applications, such as security and situational awareness. In the civilian domain, it can provide quantitative evidence to investigate urban mobility and traffic patterns in cities. Satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR) can help in detecting vehicles in (almost) all weather conditions and during the day and night. In this study, the capability of SAR StripMap imaging mode data to monitor traffic is analyzed using the case study of Wuhan, China. In ordinary times, the bridges crossing the Yangtze river are the key infrastructure allowing for urban mobility in Wuhan. More recently, the city has been the first in the world to be put in lockdown due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus Disease of 2019 (COVID-19). Using a very long time series of 294 COSMO-SkyMed StripMap HIMAGE mode scenes collected from 2011 to 2020, we detected vehicles on seven bridges, estimated their speed, and analyzed the traffic pattern over time. Vehicles are detected based on their azimuth shift caused by their across-track motion. Our goal is to monitor the variations in traffic instead of single-car detection. The results from 2011 to 2019 show a general increase in the number of vehicles crossing the bridges, as new infrastructure was built over the years. Variations in detected vehicle numbers were especially found during the two events of the 7th International Military Sports Council (CISM) Military World Games in October 2019, and the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020. These events were therefore used for internal validation of our assessment of traffic patterns. On the other side, TomTom traffic index data were used for external validation. The results and their comparison with TomTom data prove the effectiveness of our method in detecting traffic patterns, but also demonstrate that mostly large vehicles (e.g., trucks or buses) are detected. Future work should be carried out to improve the detection rate of smaller vehicles.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/rs12101636","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,5,20]],"date-time":"2020-05-20T10:37:38Z","timestamp":1589971058000},"page":"1636","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":21,"title":["Monitoring 2011\u20132020 Traffic Patterns in Wuhan (China) with COSMO-SkyMed SAR, Amidst the 7th CISM Military World Games and COVID-19 Outbreak"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"12","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2054-2347","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Hashir","family":"Tanveer","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"LIESMARS, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1624-4697","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Timo","family":"Balz","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"LIESMARS, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8134-1576","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Francesca","family":"Cigna","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Italian Space Agency (ASI), Via del Politecnico snc, 00133 Rome, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7242-4473","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Deodato","family":"Tapete","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Italian Space Agency (ASI), Via del Politecnico snc, 00133 Rome, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,5,20]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"6","DOI":"10.1109\/MGRS.2013.2248301","article-title":"A tutorial on synthetic aperture radar","volume":"1","author":"Moreira","year":"2013","journal-title":"IEEE Geosci. Remote Sens. Mag."},{"key":"ref_2","unstructured":"Hinz, S., Meyer, F., Laika, A., and Bamler, R. (2005, January 21\u201323). Spaceborne traffic monitoring with dual channel synthetic aperture radar theory and experiments. Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR\u201905)\u2014Workshops, San Diego, CA, USA."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"807","DOI":"10.1109\/TGRS.2009.2037919","article-title":"Automatic extraction of traffic flows using TerraSAR-X along-track interferometry","volume":"48","author":"Suchandt","year":"2010","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_4","unstructured":"Werner, A. (2008). SAR Imaging of Moving Objects, Including Ships and Ocean Surface Waves, ESA-MONRE\/RSC Training Course."},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1984","DOI":"10.1109\/36.951089","article-title":"Theory of synthetic aperture radar imaging of a moving target","volume":"39","author":"Jao","year":"2001","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"7","DOI":"10.1049\/ip-rsn:20030076","article-title":"Detection and imaging of arbitrarily moving targets with single-channel SAR","volume":"150","author":"Kirscht","year":"2003","journal-title":"IEE Proc. Radar Sonar Navig."},{"key":"ref_7","unstructured":"China National Health Commission (2020). Announcement from the Headquarter for Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Prevention and Control (No 1)."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2754","DOI":"10.1109\/JSTARS.2014.2317287","article-title":"The COSMO-SkyMed dual use earth observation program: Development, qualification, and results of the commissioning of the overall constellation","volume":"7","author":"Caltagirone","year":"2014","journal-title":"IEEE J. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Obs. Remote Sens."},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"171","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jog.2010.01.001","article-title":"COSMO-SkyMed an existing opportunity for observing the Earth","volume":"49","author":"Covello","year":"2010","journal-title":"J. Geodyn."},{"key":"ref_10","unstructured":"Battagliere, M.L., Covello, F., and Coletta, A. (2012, January 1\u20135). COSMO-SkyMed background mission: Overview, objectives and results. Proceedings of the 63rd International Astronautical Congress, Naples, Italy."},{"key":"ref_11","unstructured":"Fiorentino, C., Virelli, M., and Battagliere, M.L. (2020, January 01). COSMO-SkyMed Mission and Products Description. Available online: https:\/\/www.asi.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/COSMO-SkyMed-Mission-and-Products-Description_rev3-2.pdf."},{"key":"ref_12","unstructured":"TomTom NV (2013, November 01). TomTom Traffic Index 2013. Available online: http:\/\/www.tomtom.com\/en_gb\/trafficindex\/."},{"key":"ref_13","first-page":"63","article-title":"Traffic Data: Bluetooth Sensors vs. Crowdsourcing\u2014A Comparative Study to Calculate Travel Time Reliability in Calgary, Alberta, Canada","volume":"3","author":"Tahmasseby","year":"2015","journal-title":"J. Traffic Transp. Eng."},{"key":"ref_14","first-page":"493","article-title":"Performance analysis of a real-time adaptive prediction algorithm for traffic congestion","volume":"17","author":"Nadeem","year":"2018","journal-title":"J. Inf. Commun. Technol."},{"key":"ref_15","unstructured":"Weihing, D., Hinz, S., and Meyer, F. (2006, January 8\u201311). Detection of along-track ground moving targets in high resolution spaceborne SAR images. Proceedings of the ISPRS Commission VII Symposium, Enschede, The Netherlands."},{"key":"ref_16","unstructured":"Meyer, F., Hinz, S., Laika, A., and Bamler, R. (2005, January 29\u201330). A-Priori information driven detection of moving objects for traffic monitoring by space- borne SAR. Proceedings of the CMRT05, International Archives of Photogram- Metry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vienna, Austria. 3\/W24."},{"key":"ref_17","unstructured":"William, E., and Camps, A. (2017). Introduction to Satellite Remote Sensing, Elsevier."},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"644","DOI":"10.1109\/LGRS.2007.903074","article-title":"Radar signatures of a passenger car","volume":"4","author":"Palubinskas","year":"2007","journal-title":"IEEE Geosci. Remote Sens. Lett."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"234","DOI":"10.1126\/science.367.6475.234","article-title":"New SARS-like virus in China triggers alarm","volume":"367","author":"Cohen","year":"2020","journal-title":"Science"},{"key":"ref_20","unstructured":"BBC 2020 (2020, April 08). Coronavirus: People of Wuhan Allowed to Leave after Lockdown. Available online: https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-asia-china-52207776."}],"container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2072-4292\/12\/10\/1636\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T09:30:42Z","timestamp":1760175042000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2072-4292\/12\/10\/1636"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2020,5,20]]},"references-count":20,"journal-issue":{"issue":"10","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,5]]}},"alternative-id":["rs12101636"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/rs12101636","relation":{},"ISSN":["2072-4292"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2072-4292","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2020,5,20]]}}}