Programs & Labs
Vehicle Probe Based Real-time Traffic Monitoring on Arterials and Freeways
Principal Investigator:
- Nikolas Geroliminis, Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering
Co-Investigator:
- John Hourdos, Director, Minnesota Traffic Observatory
Project Summary
Travel time is one of the oldest performance measures used to characterize an arterial or freeway system. In addition, travel time estimation and prediction on urban arterials is an important component of Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS) and Advanced Traffic Management Systems (ATMS). Regardless, reliable and efficient estimation of travel time is still not a wide spread accomplishment especially on arterials since it requires extensive sensor infrastructure normally found only on freeways. Since it is cost prohibitive to install location based sensors on all arterial roads in large urban networks, this study aims in capitalizing on another type of sensor information; the type of GPS based, mobile sensors found in abundance in the form of commercial fleets like UPS, FedEx, taxis and transit vehicles. Specifically in recent years, transit agencies have invested millions of dollars in technology-based systems like Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) systems, which are installed on transit vehicles. The proposed methodology will allow metropolitan authorities to capitalize on this existing and ever increasing population of AVL equipped vehicles for the estimation of real time travel route travel times. The proposed methodology will also provide for efficient estimation of travel time reliability measures allowing for these measures to increase in accuracy and robustness as new more recent data become available. The methodology is not constrained to AVL information, but can be applied to any type of GPS mobile sensors, given the broad existence of filters which distinguish between actual congestion and a stopping delay.
Sponsors:
- ITS Institute (RITA)