Title: Hourly traffic volume estimation: radio frequency identification application

Authors: Ju Sam Oh, Tae-Young Heo, Jin Ki Eom

Addresses: Advanced Highway & Research Division, Korea Institute of Construction Technology, Goyang 411-712, South Korea. ' Division of Nano Data System, Korea Maritime University, Pusan, South Korea. ' Policy & Logistics Research Department, Korea Railroad Research Institute, Uiwang 360-1, South Korea

Abstract: With the growing development of Information Technology (IT), various advanced research technologies have been applied to collect useful information in the area of transportation science. The Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system is one of ITs useful in transportation research. Specifically, traffic count and travel time can simply be obtained from the RFID reader installed on a probe vehicle. The RFID technique, however, is a sample survey, not a complete enumeration since not all vehicles have a RFID tag. In this paper, we propose a reasonable and objective methodology to estimate total traffic volumes from developing a simple regression model based on the sample obtained from the RFID technique. We also suggest a method that assesses the optimal proportion of RFID tags needed to provide reliable estimates of traffic volume. This will help transportation agencies to optimise a budget with limited funds set aside for RFID projects.

Keywords: information technology; RFID tags; radio frequency identification; probe vehicles; ITS; intelligent transport systems; traffic volume estimation; traffic prediction; simple linear regression; transportation science.

DOI: 10.1504/WRITR.2009.023306

World Review of Intermodal Transportation Research, 2009 Vol.2 No.2/3, pp.187 - 200

Published online: 18 Feb 2009 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article