Field Experiments on Bluetooth-Based Travel Time Data Collection

Recently, a new Bluetooth-based travel time data collection approach has been gaining momentum in the transportation research community. This approach relies on identifying and matching the median access control (MAC) address of each Bluetooth device carried by bypassing vehicles for travel time data collection. Although there have been several studies documenting such data collection techniques, little research has been done regarding the inherent error rate of these devices. Furthermore, the use of multiple devices in tandem to improve results has not been fully investigated. This paper compares Bluetooth MAC address-based travel-time sensors developed by the authors with standard automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) devices commonly used for travel time data collection. Two types of antennae, omni-directional and directional, were tested to determine the effects of antenna selection on travel time data collection. Omni-directional sensors were found to have a larger detection zone than the directional sensors and are subject to more noise and bigger spatial errors, as a vehicle may be detected anywhere within the zone. Meanwhile, a larger detection zone also corresponds to a bigger sample size. Our test results indicate that although the Bluetooth sensors tended to be biased towards slower vehicles, the travel time measurements obtained were representative of the ground truth travel-time data measured by the ALPRs. There is great potential to apply this approach for cost-effective travel time data collection.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Malinovskiy, Yegor
  • Wu, Yao-Jan
  • Wang, Yinhai
  • Lee, Un Kun
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 89th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2010-1-10 to 2010-1-14
• Date: 2010

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: DVD
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 17p
• Monograph Title: TRB 89th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Automatic data collection systems; Automatic license plate readers; Automatic vehicle detection and identification systems; Bluetooth technology; Cost effectiveness; Directional antennas; Error analysis; Omnidirectional antennas; Probes (Measuring devices); Travel time
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; I71: Traffic Theory;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01152556
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 10-3134
• Files: BTRIS, TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Mar 16 2010 6:13AM