ESTIMATION OF TRAFFIC PLATOON STRUCTURE FROM HEADWAY STATISTICS

This study deals first with the modeling of urban traffic headway statistics. It is shown that a composite distribution based on the convex combination of a lognormal and a shifted exponential distribution gives a good fit to observed traffic data. This statistical model is then used to generate a model for the formation and passage of "platoons" of vehicles. It is shown that the problem of estimating the time at which a "platoon" passes a detector, as well as the number of vehicles in the "platoon," corresponds to the point process disorder problem. An optimal estimator for the platoon size and passage time, based on detector data, is then derived via known results for the point process disorder problem. It is shown that the computations required by this estimator can be performed in a microprocessor. Furthermore, the estimator is tested against the UTCS-1 traffic simulator and performs very well.

• Corporate Authors:

  Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

  3 Park Avenue, 17th Floor
  New York, NY  United States  10016-5997
• Authors:
  • Baras, J S
  • Dorsey, A J
  • Levine, W S
• Publication Date: 1979-8

Media Info

• Features: References;
• Pagination: p. 553-559
• Serial:
  • IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control
  • Volume: AC-2
  • Issue Number: 4
  • Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Headways; Highway traffic control; Microprocessors; Statistical analysis; Traffic control; Traffic simulation
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00310344
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Engineering Index
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jun 9 1980 12:00AM