A Kalman Filter-Based Queue Length Estimation Method with Low-Penetration Mobile Sensor Data at Signalized Intersections

Abstract

Queue length estimation is of great importance for signal performance measures and signal optimization. With the development of connected vehicle technology and mobile internet technology, using mobile sensor data instead of fixed detector data to estimate queue length has become a significant research topic. This study proposes a queue length estimation method using low-penetration mobile sensor data as the only input. The proposed method is based on the combination of Kalman Filtering and shockwave theory. The critical points are identified from raw spatiotemporal points and allocated to different cycles for subsequent estimation. To apply the Kalman Filter, a state-space model with two state variables and the system noise determined by queue-forming acceleration is established, which can characterize the stochastic property of queue forming. The Kalman Filter with joining points as measurement input recursively estimates real-time queue lengths; on the other hand, queue-discharging waves are estimated with a line fitted to leaving points. By calculating the crossing point of the queue-forming wave and the queue-discharging wave of a cycle, the maximum queue length is also estimated. A case study with DiDi mobile sensor data and ground truth maximum queue lengths at Huanggang-Fuzhong intersection, Shenzhen, China, shows that the mean absolute percentage error is only 11.2%. Moreover, the sensitivity analysis shows that the proposed estimation method achieves much better performance than the classical linear regression method, especially in extremely low penetration rates.