Vehicle Detector Signature Processing and Vehicle Reidentification for Travel Time Estimation

Accurate travel time estimation has been shown to be crucial information for traffic flow management systems. In this paper, we present the foundations for a travel time estimation methodology using vehicle signatures with special attention to signature pre-processing. This approach to signature pre-processing is based on principled multi-rate signal processing techniques. The matching of signatures from an upstream station to a downstream station is done through a maximum-a-posteriori (MAP) classifier. For each matched upstream-to-downstream pair of signatures, the feasibility of the corresponding travel time is used to filter out mismatches. Travel time is obtained by computing the median of the observations that fall within the modal bin of the travel time histogram. Best results are obtained when only the subset of vehicles with atypical signatures is considered. Although, any types of inductive or magneto-inductive signatures can be appropriately in the presented method, the best performances are expected when the sensors in use generate signatures with a higher degree of pair-wise dissimilarity. Both 3M micro-loops and the standard ILDs (Inductive Loop Detector) were used in this study. In the experimental tests (shorter station separation), the proposed signature pre-processing procedure, when applied to all types of vehicles in the traffic stream and without feasibility constraints, lead to 67.3% re-identification accuracy. When feasibility constraints are still absent and only atypical signatures were considered, the re-identification performance reached 97.4%. These results are very promising since in the absence of feasibility constraints, the performance the re-identification algorithm is independent of the separation between the stations.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Ndoye, Mandoye
  • Totten, Virgil
  • Carter, Ben
  • Bullock, Darcy M
  • Krogmeier, James V
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 87th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2008-1-13 to 2008-1-17
• Date: 2008

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: DVD
• Features: Figures; Photos; References;
• Pagination: 24p
• Monograph Title: TRB 87th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Operations; Route choice; Traffic congestion; Traffic estimation; Traffic flow; Travel demand; Travel time; Vehicle detectors
• Uncontrolled Terms: Posterior analysis
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01099345
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 08-0497
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: May 21 2008 7:05AM