Efficient Link Travel Time Estimation for Signalized Link by Small Size Probe Reports

Abstract

For probe vehicle system, there are only few travel time data (sample) available for real-time link travel time estimation due to limited number of probe vehicles. However, the population of link travel time (travel times of all vehicles) has large variance. In this circumstance, it is difficult to reliably estimate the population mean by the sample mean directly. In this paper, the population is redefined by the link travel times of such vehicles which have through movements at upstream and downstream intersections. However, there are still two groups of vehicles (without delay and with delay) with significantly different travel time. The relationship between the three variables (two means of the groups and the portion of the first group) is analyzed and an estimation method based on the relationship is proposed. The comparison between the new and the conventional method shows that the proposed method can provide more precise estimation result.