Evaluation of Cell Phone Traffic Data
Principal Investigator:
Henry Liu, Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering
Project Summary:
Cellular phone tracking is a promising vehicle probe method that is likely to produce reliable travel-time information. To demonstrate the capabilities of a cell phone traffic data system, a pilot demonstration project was initiated by Mn/DOT in cooperation with a private contractor. As part of the demonstration project, traffic data provided by the contractor through cell phone tracking were evaluated and compared with data from alternative sources. The alternative travel-time data collected in the evaluation study include the freeway travel times generated using inductive loop detectors, travel-time runs using instrumented probe vehicles, and "ground truth" travel times determined by matching license plates through recorded video. A statistical data comparison and analysis was conducted, and results were summarized in the final report, currently in final review at Mn/DOT.
Sponsors:
- Minnesota Department of Transportation
Project Details:
- Start date: 03/2007
- Project Status: Completed
- Research Area: Transportation Safety and Traffic Flow