Evaluation of the Utilization of Smartphone Applications in Active Probe Vehicle Traffic Data Collection

Year 2018, Volume: 2 Issue: 2, 1 - 9, 01.12.2018

Abdulkadir Özden Ardeshir Faghri

Abstract

Probe
vehicle data has been widely used as a mean of traffic monitoring, specifically
for travel time, delay and speed measures. Technological developments in the
last decade have increased the availability of technologies and tools used in
probe vehicle data collection. One of the most common methods is obtaining
necessary data from GPS equipped vehicles. Transportation agencies can utilize
fleet data for continuous monitoring of a study area or assign a certain number
of vehicles to perform data collection on a specific corridor/area. However, if
the number of probe vehicles is low, the location accuracy becomes more
critical. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the possibility of using
existing smartphone applications in the market for collecting travel time and
delay data in probe vehicles and compare with high-end GPS product. With this
goal, the study aims to reduce the cost of data collection and test the
accuracy and reliability of limited probe vehicle data. The data has been
collected simultaneously on 102 segments in different speed, density and
environmental conditions on major roadways in Delaware. The mean and variance
of the travel time and delay measures are compared with statistical methods and
the results revealed that there is no significant difference between smartphone
application data and high-end GPS product data for travel time and delay
measures. Therefore, it is emphasized that the smartphones are capable of
collecting probe vehicle data for management and operation of the roadways even
in specific data collections where the number of probe vehicles is limited.

Keywords

Travel Time, Delay, Probe Vehicle Data, Smartphone Applications, Traffic Data

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