Real-Time Measurement of Travel Time Delay in Work Zones and Evaluation Metrics Using Bluetooth Probe Tracking

Abstract

This paper describes the collection and use of 1.4 million travel time records that were collected over a 12-week period in 2009 to evaluate and communicate quantifiable travel mobility metrics for a rural interstate highway work zone along I-65 in northwestern Indiana. The effort involved the automated collection and processing of Bluetooth probe data from multiple field collection sites, communicating travel delay times to the motoring public, assessing driver diversion rates, and developing proposed metrics for a state transportation agency to evaluate work zone mobility performance. Collected travel time profiles were compared with traditionally measured hourly flows in both incident and nonincident conditions. Through the 12-week period over which work zone performance was measured, the work zone had 422 h of congested conditions in which travel time delay was greater than 10 min. Despite the display of real-time delay measurements to the motoring public through portable dynamic message signs, a negligible percentage of the travel probes were observed to divert in advance of the congested work zone through self-guidance. Implementation of a targeted alternate route starting the weekend of July 24 resulted in an increase of observed probes diverting along the trail-blazed route from none to more than 30%. The paper concludes by suggesting that acquisition of work zone travel time data provides a mechanism for assessing the relationship between crashes and work zone queuing. Real-time monitoring of these travel time data may also enable future contracts to include innovative travel time reliability clauses.

Antenna Characterization for Bluetooth-Based Travel Time Data Collection

“…Wasson et al (2008) conducted a study in the greater Indianapolis area to estimate freeway and arterial travel times. Haseman, Wasson, and Bullock (2010) calculated travel delay times in a rural interstate highway work zone along I-65 in northwestern Indiana, assessed driver diversion rates, and developed proposed metrics for a state transportation agency to evaluate work zone mobility performance. Barceló, Montero, Marqués, and Carmona (2010) assessed the quality of the data collected from BT mobile devices for travel time forecasting and to estimate time-dependent origin-destination (OD) matrices.…”

Performance Measures for Traffic Signal Systems: An Outcome-Oriented Approach

“…In recent years, a number of technologies have emerged enabling travel time information to be collected on public roads (72)(73)(74)(75)(76)(77)(78)(79)(80)(81)(82)(83)(84)(85)(86)(87)(88). The probe data market is not yet mature enough to be able to effectively measure minor movements and side street delay, except where volumes are exceptionally high.…”

“…The MAC addresses can be matched from station to station to calculate travel times (77)(78)(79)(80)(81). This provides a lower number of samples than from permanent sensors, but there is greater flexibility in setting the locations of the monitoring stations.…”

Wireless Data Collection System for Real-Time Arterial Travel Time Estimates: Final Report

“…The DCUs that have been reported in the literature vary from commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) laptop computers to custom-built units which may include additional capabilities, such as global positioning system (GPS) receivers and/or cellular communications modules for remote data transfer (Haghani et al, 2010;Haseman et al, 2010;Quayle et al, 2010).…”