Objectives

To fully exploit the benefits of the new generation of Intelligent Transportation Systems now widely under development, including applications for performance measurement and homeland security, more accurate and appropriate real-time traffic data need to be collected from the urban highway transportation network and communicated to traffic management centers, traffic operations personnel, travelers, and other agencies. This research proposes to deploy and investigate at a corridor level anonymous vehicle tracking techniques that have been pioneered by the authors in previous PATH research. The objective of the research is to investigate and demonstrate real-time freeway and arterial performance measurement in a major real-world setting.

Methodology

This project is particularly timely as it will benefit from several key parallel fast-track efforts which are expected to be completed prior to their desired use in this project. The most important of these is expansion of the existing I-405N Traffic Detection and Surveillance Sub-testbed (TDS2) in Irvine from a single 1 km freeway segment to an 11 km corridor of I-405N, including multiple on and off ramps and 18 signalized intersections on Alton Parkway, which is a major parallel surface street to I-405 between the I-5 and SR-55 freeway interchanges in Irvine. Accordingly, an outstanding opportunity exists to leverage these hardware and software investments, with no additional equipment cost to this project.

Previous vehicle reidentification research by the authors has utilized inductive signatures from square 6x6 ft. loops. The expanded I-405N TDS2 mostly contains round loops. The first phase of this research will therefore investigate vehicle signatures and extraction of features for vehicle reidentification in a mixed system of round, square and blade loop sensors, as found in the TDS2 (because freeway off-ramps are mostly not instrumented, either round loops or blade loops maybe installed in those locations; on Alton Parkway, it is quite likely that blade loops will be installed in a number of new locations). In addition, this phase of the research will emphasize single loop installations rather than double loop or speed trap installations. For vehicle reidentification purposes this approach necessitates development of techniques for estimating vehicle speeds from single round and blade loops, as we have done successfully with square loops. In so doing, the use of inductive signatures for vehicle reidentification and performance measurement will be more generally applicable to existing loop installations, and not constrained by the need for square loops or double loops. The research will then focus on deployment and evaluation of the newly developed advanced vehicle reidentification methods for anonymous real-time tracking of individual vehicles, and real-time travel time and performance measurement, in the 11 km TDS2 corridor.