An Evaluation of the Reliability of GPS-Based Transportation Data

GPS-based data are becoming a cornerstone for real-time transportation applications. Tracking data of vehicles from GPS receivers are however susceptible to measurement errors. The assessment of the reliability of data from GPS receiver is a neglected issue, especially in a real road network setting and in the phase after data transfer but before information identification. An evaluation method is outlined and carried out by conducting a randomized experiment. We assess the reliability of GPS-based transportation data on geographical position, speed, and elevation from three varied receivers GlobalSat BT-338X, Magellan SporTrak Pro and smart phone for three transportation modes: bicycle, car, and bus. The positional error ranging from 0158 meters, and 74% to 100% with an error within 5 meters depending on the transportation mode and route, there is also a non-negligible risk for aberrant positioning. Speed is slightly underestimated or overestimated with errors around 5km/h except for SporTrak Pro which had an errorNew updated version of paper.