Cellphone Probes as an ATMS Tool Final technical research rept

摘要

The foundation of traffic operations and management is the ability to monitor traffic conditions. One approach to traffic monitoring is to sample conditions by 'tracking' a limited number of probe vehicles as they traverse a network. An emerging technology known as wireless location technology (WLT) has been developed to allow for the geolocation of mobile wireless devices (the most common of which are cellular telephones). Over the past decade, a number of research studies and operational tests have attempted to develop probe traffic monitoring systems based on WLT. However, there still exists significant confusion and misperceptions concerning WLT-based traffic monitoring. To address this problem, this paper seeks to provide a comprehensive assessment of WLT-based traffic monitoring. To do so, the specific purposes of this paper are to: (a) fully describe the concept of WLT-based traffic monitoring, (b) present a critical assessment of past studies of WLT-based traffic monitoring, (c) document the evaluation of one of the most recent operational tests - the 2001 Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), Maryland State Highway Administration (MSHA), and US Wireless Corporation (USWC) effort in the Washington, D.C. region, and (d) discuss the unique challenges that these systems pose to the field of traffic engineering.