Abstract
Travel times have been traditionally estimated from data collected by roadway sensors. Recently, new technologies, such as cell phone tracking, license plate matching, automatic vehicle identifications and video detection, are employed for this purpose. In this study, the data collected by TRANSMIT readers, Bluetooth sensors, and INRIX are assessed by comparing each to the “ground truth” travel times collected by probe vehicles carrying GPS-based navigation devices. Travel times of probe vehicles traveling on the study segment of I-287 in New Jersey were collected in 2009. Statistical measures, such as standard deviation, average absolute speed error, and speed error bias, were used to make an in-depth analysis. The accuracy of each travel time estimation method is analyzed. The data collected by Bluetooth sensors and the TRANSMIT readers seem more consistent with the ground true data, and slightly outperform the data reported by INRIX. This study established a procedure for analyzing the accuracy of floating car data (FCD) collected by different technologies.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
C. Dalaff, R. Reulke, A. Kroen, et al., A traffic object detection system for road traffic measurement and management, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary? doi=10.1.1.113.596, 2003.
M. Chen, S. Chien, X. Liu, et al., Application of AVL/APC data support system, In: The 82th TRB Annual Meeting, Preprint CD-ROM, Washington DC: Transportation Research Board, 2003.
J. Wright, J. Dahlgren, Using vehicles equipped with toll tags as probes for providing travel times, California PATH Working Paper, 2001.
M.D. Fontaine, A.P. Yakala, B.L. Smith, Final contract report: probe sampling strategies traffic monitoring systems based on wireless location technology, Virginia Transportation Research Council, 2007.
K. Oberstein, Collection and use of floating car data: experiences from Berlin, In: ITS-World Congress, 1997, Berlin: ITS, 1997
U. Fastenrath, Floating car data on a larger scale, In: ITS-World Congress, 1997, Berlin: ITS, 1997.
M. Lädke, W. Huber, Extended mobile data collection for immediate driver warning, VDI- Conference for Electronic Systems for Vehicles; Baden-Baden, Germany, 1998.
B. Hellinga, L. Fu, Reducing bias in probe-based arterial link travel time estimates, Transportation Research Part C, 2002, 10(4): 257–273.,.
P. Loustau, V. Grasset, C. Morency, et al., Comparing floating car data and carsharing GPS data for travel time assessment, http://intranet.imet.gr/Portals/0/UsefulDocuments/documents/02030.pdf, 2010.
B. Smith, H. Zhang, M. Fontaine, et al., Final report of ITS center project: cell-phone probes as an ATMS tool, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Center for Transportation Studies, 2003.
B. Kerner, C. Demir, R. Herrtwich, et al., Traffic state detection with floating car data in road networks, In: IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Konolige, 2005.
G. Rose, Mobile phones as traffic probes: practices, prospects and issues, Transport Reviews, 2006, 26(3): 275–291.
E. Brockfeld, S. Lorkowski, P. Mieth, et al., Benefits and limits of recent floating car data technology: an evaluation study, In: The 11th WCTR Conference, Berkeley, 2007.
G. Leduc, Road traffic data: collection methods and applications, JRC Technical Notes, http://ftp.jrc.es/EURdoc/JRC47967.TN.pdf, 2008.
K. Mouskos, E. Niver, L. Pignataro, TRANSMIT system evaluation, Final Report, Newark: New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Liu, X., Chien, S. & Kim, K. Evaluation of floating car technologies for travel time estimation. J. Mod. Transport. 20, 49–56 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03325777
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03325777