Reliable Traffic Sensor Deployment Considering Disruptions Using Floating Search Method

Abstract

Sensor location problem on transportation network has been an interesting subject over the past few years. It is described as to optimally locate a certain number of given sensors in a network to minimize a defined cost function. Different sensor location methods have been developed; however, the probability of sensor failure has not been considered in most; if a sensor fails, the optimal deployment will not be plausible. Therefore, in this paper, the sensor failure probability is considered to place sensors optimally in order to find travel time estimation error. Moreover, it is attempted to provide optimal deployment by considering sensors failure, in which the travel time can be estimated using its upstream and downstream active sensors. To solve the proposed model, due to its complexity and diverse reported failure cases, the floating search method is used as an efficient approach in optimization problems. It has a much lower numerical complexity compared to other methods. The Sioux Falls network is adopted to test the proposed methodology. The results show that if one or more sensors fail, the remaining sensors will be in the best possible deployment, and travel time estimation error will be reduced as much as possible. Further, this study proposes a more accurate method for sensor optimal location by reducing travel time estimation error in the case of sensor failure.