Bluetooth- and Wi-Fi-Based Mesh Network Platform for Traffic Monitoring

Seamless transportation is one of the pillars of our societal and economical sustainability. Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) offer potential solutions to growing congestion problems in major urban areas. The ?heart? of ITS undoubtedly lies in gathering and using transportation system information in real-time. Gathering information practice is dominated by the use of point detectors for surveillance, and wire-line communication networks for data and information transmission. Reliance on point detectors, although dominant at the moment, is losing appeal due to detector reliability issues and the cost of building and maintaining the detector network, not to mention major traffic stream disruptions during construction and maintenance. This paper will describe a prototypical implementation and test deployment of a new blue tooth and wireless mesh networks platform for traffic network monitoring. The platform uses traveling cars as data collecting sensors or probes and uses wireless municipal mesh networks to transport sensed data. Our platform assumes that cars or drivers? mobile devices are equipped with the widely-adopted low-cost Bluetooth wireless technology. The platform was able to track cars traveling at speeds of 0 to 70 km/hour. The study was able to track cars as they travel and turn on the road network. In addition to tracking vehicles, the study was able to approximate car speed using two different methods. Our preliminary results indicated an accuracy of ± 10%- 15%. We plan to incorporate more advanced algorithms for calculating accurate speeds in the future.

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: DVD
  • Features: Figures; Maps; References;
  • Pagination: 11p
  • Monograph Title: TRB 87th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01099205
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Report/Paper Numbers: 08-1848
  • Files: TRIS, TRB
  • Created Date: May 21 2008 7:05AM