Estimation of flow and density using probe vehicles with spacing measurement equipment |
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Institution: | 1. Key Laboratory of Road and Traffic Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, China;2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong;3. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322-4110, USA;4. Department of Applied Mathematics and Computational Sciences, University of Cantabria, Santander 39005, Spain |
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Abstract: | Probe vehicles provide some of the most useful data for road traffic monitoring because they can acquire wide-ranging and spatiotemporally detailed information at a relatively low cost compared with traditional fixed-point observation. However, current GPS-equipped probe vehicles cannot directly provide us volume-related variables such as flow and density. In this paper, we propose a new probe vehicle-based estimation method for obtaining volume-related variables by assuming that a probe vehicle can measure the spacing to its leading one. This assumption can be realized by utilizing key technologies in advanced driver assistance systems that are expected to spread in the near future. We developed a method of estimating the flow, density, and speed from the probe vehicle data without exogenous assumptions on traffic flow characteristics, such as a fundamental diagram. In order to quantify the characteristics of the method, we performed a field experiment at a real-world urban expressway by employing prototypes of the probe vehicles with spacing measurement equipment. The result showed that the proposed method could accurately estimate the 5 min and hourly traffic volumes with probe vehicle penetration rate of 3.5% and 0.2%, respectively. |
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Keywords: | Probe vehicle Lagrangian sensing Traffic flow Traffic state estimation Advanced driver assistance system |
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