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

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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