Locating Traffic Information Sources in Urban Areas

Abstract

Collecting and distributing traffic information is vital to intelligent transportation systems (ITS). Origin destination (OD) data and road geographical information systems (GIS) data were combined to locate potential providers of traffic information for drivers in the city of San Francisco. There were very few major providers of traffic information for most traffic zones, suggesting that locating the sources of traffic information can considerably reduce the volume of information transmitted for a future internet of vehicles. The Gini coefficient was used to quantify the contribution of heterogeneous information providers in different traffic zones. This work could offer useful support for a future internet of vehicles, in which a huge amount of traffic information would need to be transmitted through V2V and V2I communications.