Detection-delay-based freeway incident detection algorithms

摘要

Even though incident detection algorithms are designed and implemented for quickly detecting incidents, the criterion of mean detection delay has hardly been well defined and utilized in developing and evaluating incident detection algorithms. In addition, most incident detection algorithms do not have an optimal property in terms of detection delay with respect to false alarm rate. In the study presented in this paper, the incident detection problem was formulated as an optimization problem. To implement the algorithm, called the CUSUM algorithm that was derived from the optimization formulation of the incident detection problem, a simplified procedure was developed. Based on this procedure, three varieties of the CUSUM algorithm were developed and tested based on real incident data against a newly denned criterion for mean detection delay. Selected incident detection algorithms were also compared with the CUSUM algorithms. The comparison demonstrates the superiority of the CUSUM algorithms against other selected algorithms in reducing detection delay while maintaining an acceptable detection rate.