Purchasing Travel Time Data

Abstract

Given recent advances in technology that support probe-based traffic monitoring, many transportation agencies are considering purchasing travel time data from private providers to supplement or replace data currently collected using agency-owned point sensors. Although this new approach potentially offers significant benefits, it also brings substantial risk. To mitigate the risk, it is essential that agencies develop clear, thorough requirements to use in travel time data purchasing agreements. The purpose of this research was to develop proposed travel time data service requirements. First, the research team conducted a critical analysis of expected data users and their applications. On the basis of that analysis, proposed requirements were developed in the following categories: (a) travel time measure requirements defining what data should be provided in the agreement, (b) spatial coverage requirements defining the directional link structure that should be used for travel time measurements, (c) temporal requirements defining the measurement time intervals, (d) data quality requirements defining minimum acceptable data quality to be provided, (e) data quality validation requirements defining the methodology to use in assessing data quality, and (f) data use requirements defining acceptable uses of the data by the purchasing agency.