Estimation of Lane-Level Travel Times in Vehicle-to-Vehicle and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure–Based Traffic Information System

Abstract

The recent advancement of vehicle positioning and wireless communication technologies facilitates the development of more sophisticated traffic control and information strategies. This study proposes a methodology for estimating lane-level travel times (L²TT) under an environment referred to as V2X, which includes vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications. A framework is presented for a V2X-based traffic information system that is capable of transmitting vehicle positions and speeds, which are used as inputs of the proposed methodology. A concept of establishing temporal nodes and links based on the dynamic change in traffic conditions is proposed to estimate more reliable and accurate L²TT. VISSIM, a microscopic traffic simulator for multimodal traffic flow modeling, is used to evaluate the proposed travel time estimation method. Statistical analysis techniques including analysis of variance and a homogeneity test between data groups are adopted to derive more generalized conclusions. The evaluation results show that less than a 10% mean absolute percentage error was achievable with a 20% probe vehicle rate. It is expected that the proposed methodology will serve as a useful precursor to the development of a next-generation traffic information system in the robust wireless communications era.