PMSS Project Details

Project ID:	FHWA-PROJ-10-0038
Project Name:	Berkeley Transportation Systems-Measurement Transportation System Performance Measures using Loop Infrastructure (102-FH2-005 10C10078)
Status:	Completed
Contact:	Last Name: Gibson First Name: David P Telephone: 202-493-3271 E-mail: david.gibson@dot.gov
Organization:	Federal Highway Administration - Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center (TFHRC)
Office:	Office of Operations Research and Development
Team:	Trans Enabling Technologies Team
Roadmap/Focus area(s):	Intersections
Project Description:	The objective of this project is to develop an inductive loop based technology for monitoring the travel time and origin-destination performance of vehicles that augments a Bluetooth based travel time system now under development. To their advantage, loop signatures characterize almost 100 percent of the vehicles traveling over them while Bluetooth technology characterizes none of them. Bluetooth always correctly re-identifies vehicles while loops may mismatch or miss signature matches. In Phase I: Field tests must demonstrate that the technology can sense and track vehicles between two points with vehicle classification. Statistical characterizations of the number of vehicles that can be identified at the first location and then re-identified at the second location must be made. These should be compared to ground truth against the total vehicle population traveling between the two points. This will demonstrate the potential of the new technology. The loop signature sensor hardware may be a device previously developed by the Small Business Innovation Research proposer, or one of its partners, or may be developed or developed further under this project. Standard loop detector controller cards sample traffic at a rate of 60 hertz (Hz); however, they frequently do not push detailed information back to the traffic management center. Instead, they calculate and then aggregate values, such as volumes and occupancies, at up to 30-second intervals before sending this data back to the central processing system. Past approaches to loop-based vehicle reidentification have focused on creating more sophisticated controller card hardware. These approaches aim to create higher-frequency controller cards that sample at rates of 20kHz to 100kHz. While these approaches can create high-resolution signatures of vehicles for matching, they are extremely difficult to deploy at large scales because they require the replacement of controller cards with new, expensive hardware at large scales. This hardware deployment in and of itself may make a loop-based vehicle reidentification scheme more expensive than a Bluetooth-based solution. This research proposes to use 60Hz samples and data fusion techniques to create a software-based signature-matching algorithm. The core strength of this approach is that it creates a clear path toward widespread deployment: it can be implemented in software at a centralized location. Thus, agencies will be able to leverage their existing loop and controller infrastructure for reidentification.
Laboratories:	Not Applicable
Start Date:	August 18, 2010
End Date:	May 4, 2011
Funding Amount:	$100,000.00
FHWA Program Name:	Small Business Innovation Program (SBIR) (2% of Adjusted CA)
Goals:	The key project objective was to see if the development of a traffic performance measurement was possible using existing loops.
Project Type:	Offsite
Background Information:	Data not yet available
Test Methodology:	Data not yet available
Other Information:	Data not yet available
Partners:	U.S. Department of Transportation: Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA); Role(s): Other stakeholder
More Information URL(s):
Fieldtest:	Data not yet available
Expected Benefits:	Congestion mitigation Real Time Traveler Information Transportation Management Emergency Response Operations Planning Data and Analysis Tools Intersection Safety
Deliverables:	Data not yet available
Related URL(s):
Project Findings:	This phase I project was successful and established the possibility of obtaining travel time data using high frequency conventional loop data. A phase II follow-up project was recommended.
FHWA Topics:	Research/Technologies--FHWA Research and Technology
TRT Terms:	traffic sensors, travel time, traffic performance, performance measures
FHWA Disciplines:
Subject Areas: