Title: Investigate the feasibility of traffic speed estimation using cell phones as probes

Authors: Zhi-Jun Qiu, Peng Cheng, Bin Ran

Addresses: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA. ' Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. ' Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA

Abstract: These days Wireless Location Technology (WLT) develops very fast. The accuracy of mobile location has been remarkably improved, which provides the possibility of using cellular probes to give a fairly good estimate of travel speed or travel time in an urban region. Probe-based traffic monitoring system using cellular technology has much lower cost than the traditional method using Global Positioning System (GPS) and it can improve the utilisation of the existing facilities. This paper summarises several previous studies and field tests, analyses the raw cell phone data from one wireless carrier and tries to address the potential issues and feasible additional refinement for the future field deployment and operational application.

Keywords: wireless location technology; WLT; traffic speed estimation; cell phones; mobile phones; geographical information systems; GIS; traffic monitoring; probes.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOI.2007.012692

International Journal of Services Operations and Informatics, 2007 Vol.2 No.1, pp.53 - 64

Published online: 08 Mar 2007 *

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