A Vehicle Speed Estimation Mechanism Using Handovers and Call Arrivals of Cellular Networks

Abstract

Information and communication technologies have improved the quality of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). The real-time traffic information has traditionally been collected via stationary vehicle detectors or GPS-based probe cars. Compared to the traditional ways, estimating traffic information from Cellular Floating Vehicle Data (CFVD) is more cost-effective, and easier to acquire. In this paper, this study proposes a novel approach to evaluate the relation of call arrival, handover, traffic flow, and traffic density. Moreover, the traffic speed is estimated by the proposed approach according to CFVD. Through the analytical analysis, this study analyzes the effects of traffic information (e.g. traffic flow and vehicle speed) and communication behaviors (e.g. call arrival rate and call holding time) on handovers and call arrivals. In the simulation, this study compares the estimated traffic information with the real traffic information. The experiment results show that the accuracy of traffic speed estimation is 89.75%. Therefore, the proposed approach can be used to estimate traffic speed from CFVD for ITS.