Personal Mobility

The El Segundo Area ITS Project is a unique collaboration between public and private
agencies resulting in the implementation of a multi-jurisdictional Advanced Traveler Information
System ("ATIS"). To date, the ATIS includes a suite of services -- telephone, Internet, and Cable
TV dissemination – focusing on the freeway segments of the Southern California region using
data provided by the State of California. The next logical step is to begin providing traveler
information for the arterial elements of the project. The LA County Department of Public Works,
working with Iteris, Inc., has looked at several potential solutions for obtaining real-time arterial
travel time and speed data, focusing primarily on “probe-based” solutions (GPS, cell phone,
Bluetooth). The analysis and comparison of these alternatives considered several factors,
including coverage, expandability, compatibility with the preliminary link-node configuration,
accuracy, and cost. Based on these analyses, the recommended approach is to use a private
information service provider as the primary source of real-time arterial traffic flow data, and use
Bluetooth readers as needed to fill in any gaps (e.g., lack of coverage, further segmentation of the TMC links).

Los Angeles County Department of Public Works

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, May 3-5, 2010, Houston, Texas

Travel times for the freeway systems in Houston, Texas are computed using information from Automatic Vehicle Identification (AVI) sensors which read Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags issued by the local tolling authority. Demonstrations were conducted to determine the feasibility of utilizing anonymous wireless address matching (Bluetooth) as an alternative to RFID readers for the determination of link travel times on an urban arterial where tag penetration of the overall traffic might not be as great as on freeways. This paper is the result of that demonstration in February and March of 2009.

Texas Transportation Institute

Paper submitted for publication and presentation at the ITS America’s 2009 Annual Meeting and Exposition

This paper reports on recent developments brought about in the area of freeway travel time
measurement based on the innovative use of Bluetooth signatures in an automatic vehicle
identification setting. The concept of using Bluetooth signatures for travel time estimation along
a section of freeway is explained. Issues related to filtering raw matched data and accuracy of the resulting “ground-truth” are addressed. Capabilities and limitations of an existing adaptive
exponential smoothing methodology in extracting accurate travel time estimates in real-time are
examined.

University of Maryland, College Park

Paper submitted for publication and presentation at the ITS America’s 2009 Annual Meeting and Exposition

This paper examines the accuracy of traffic information generated by a commercial traffic
monitoring system using anonymous tracking of cellular phones to generate roadway speed
information. The calculated speeds from the cell phone floating car probe system were
compared to two alternate sources of speed measurements; inductive loops for speeds on
freeways, and GPS equipped test vehicles for speeds on surface streets. The Traffic
Measurement System (TMS) was tested in Toronto and generated speed data which was
closely correlated with speeds measured by inductive loop detectors and with speeds
calculated from travel times of GPS equipped test vehicles. For both freeways and surface
streets under congested and uncongested conditions, the system produce speeds with better
than 85% average absolute accuracy and better then 95% average accuracy in all categories.

Intellione Technologies

Paper submitted for publication and presentation at the ITS America’s 2009 Annual Meeting and Exposition

The Maryland State Highway Administration’s (SHA) Coordinated Highways Action Response Team (CHART) program has gained access to real-time travel-time information from a third party provider, contracted by I-95 Corridor Coalition. The CHART program conducted a study to develop a set of procedural guidelines for travel time implementation on dynamic message signs (DMSs). The focus of the study was to specifically respond to a set of procedural issues that were identified during the project initiation phase. The study approach involved interviewing CHART stakeholders (operations, traffic safety, police, development, integration), researching the best practices around the country and abroad, and applying traffic engineering principles to provide recommendations to resolve the identified issues. The details provided in this paper may help other agencies to derive solutions to similar problems.

Daniel Consultants, Inc.

Maryland State Highway Administration

Integrated Control Systems, Inc.

Paper submitted for publication and presentation at the ITS America’s 2009 Annual Meeting and Exposition