Method and system for automated sequencing of vehicles in side-by-side drive-thru configurations via appearance-based classification

An image processing system comprising:

• a processor and a memory operatively associated with the processor, the processor and memory and execute instructions to perform a method of automated sequencing of vehicles merging from multiple lanes into a single lane, the method comprising:
• a) an image capturing device capturing video of a merge-point area associated with multiple lanes of traffic merging;
• b) detecting in the video a vehicle as it traverses the merge-point area;
• c) classifying the detected vehicle associated with traversing the merge-point area as coming from one of the merging lanes;
• and
• d) aggregating vehicle classifications performed in step c) to generate a merge sequence of detected vehicles.

A system for updating an event sequence, the system comprising an automatic sequencing device including a memory and a processor in communication with the processor configured to:

• receive a number of individual order requests from the two order points, each order request being received when a vehicle is located in the one of the two order points;
• acquire video data of a lane merge point area from at least one image source, the merge point area associated with the convergence of two vehicle queue lanes from two respective order points to a single queue lane;
• process one of frames and at least one region of interest (ROI) in frames of the video data to detect a vehicle including at least a portion of the vehicle in the lane merge point area;
• track a movement of each detected vehicle through the lane merge point area over a subsequent series of frames until the detected vehicle is outside the lane merge point area;
• in response to the detected and tracked vehicle associated with the lane merge point area, classify one or more video frames as including a vehicle coming from an outer lane associated with order point A or a vehicle coming from an inner lane associated with order point B;
• and
• update a sequence of the orders to match the determined sequence of vehicles in the single queue lane.