Abstract
One objective of the Department of Transport (DoT) in the Netherlands is to provide better information to road users about the traffic situation on Dutch freeways. The idea was put forward to use existing historical freeway inductive loop data to predict a customized pretrip travel time for road users. To investigate the feasibility and usefulness of that idea, DoT launched the AIDA project. A prototype database was constructed; it contained almost 2 years of travel time data for all Dutch freeway road sections with inductive loops. A statistical algorithm was designed to compute the average travel time for any freeway journey on any future date and time. An Internet trial application was built to test the database and algorithm. Accuracy of the travel time predictions was evaluated with independent loop data. The usefulness for road users was investigated with an online survey. Results show a good match between the predicted and actual travel times. Only in 10% of analyzed cases did the actual travel time exceed the predicted travel time by more than 5 min. Of 161 respondents, 50% indicated that they found the information useful. Furthermore, 22% indicated that they would consider a different departure time on the basis of AIDA information. Thus the project has shown convincingly that the AIDA concept is not only feasible but also useful to road users. Presently DoT is looking into the uses of the concept for road users and possibly also for traffic operators.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.