Feasibility of Using V2I Sensing Probe Data for Real-Time Monitoring of Multi-Class Vehicular Traffic Volumes in Unmeasured Road Locations

Hyunho Chang
Research & Development Centre Nettrek Co., LTD

Seunghoon Cheon
Korea Transport Institute (KOTI)

Abstract

Portions of dynamic traffic volumes consisting of multiple vehicle classes are accurately monitored with-out vehicle detectors using vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication systems. This offers the feasibility of online monitoring of the total traffic volumes with multi-vehicle classes without any advanced vehicle de-tectors. To evaluate this prospect, this article presents a method of monitoring dynamic multi-class vehicu-lar traffic volumes in a road location where road-side equipment (RSE) for V2I communication is in opera-tion. The proposed method aims to estimate dynamic total traffic volume data for multiple vehicle classes us-ing the V2I sensing probe volume (i.e. partial vehicular traffic volumes) collected through the RSE. An experi-mental study was conducted using real-world V2I sens-ing probe volume data. The results showed that traffic volumes for vehicle types I and II (i.e. cars and heavy vehicles, respectively) can be effectively monitored with average errors of 6.69% and 10.89%, respectively, when the penetration rates of the in-vehicle V2I device for the two vehicle types average 0.384 and 0.537, re-spectively. The performance of the method in terms of detection error is comparable to those of widely used vehicle detectors. Therefore, V2I sensing probe data for multi-vehicle classes can complement the functions of vehicle detectors because the penetration rate of in-ve-hicle V2I devices is currently high.