Travel Time Prediction under Mixed Traffic Conditions Using RFID and Bluetooth Sensors

Travel time information is an integral part in various ITS applications such as Advanced Traveler Information System, Advanced Traffic Management Systems etc. Travel time data can be collected manually or by using advanced sensors. In this study, suitability of Bluetooth and RFID (Radio Frequency Identifier) sensors for data collection under mixed traffic conditions as prevailing in India is explored. Reliability analysis was carried out using Cumulative Frequency Diagrams (CFDs) and buffer time index along with evaluation of penetration rate and match rate of RFID and Bluetooth sensors. Further, travel time of cars for a subsequent week was predicted using the travel time data obtained from RFID sensors for the present week as input in ARIMA modeling method. For predicting the travel time of different vehicle categories, relationships were framed between travel time of different vehicle categories and travel time of cars determined from RFID sensors. The stream travel time was then determined considering the travel time of all vehicle categories. The R-Square and MAPE values were used as performance measure for checking the accuracy of the developed models and were closer to one and lower respectively, indicating the suitability of the RFID sensors for travel time prediction under mixed traffic conditions. The developed estimation schemes can be used as part of travel time information applications in real time Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) implementations