Spatiotemporal Traffic Density Estimation Based on ADAS Probe Data

Abstract

This study aims to develop a spatiotemporal traffic density estimation method based on the advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) Probe data. This study uses the vehicle trajectory data collected from the ADAS equipped on the sample probe vehicles. Such vehicle trajectory data are used firstly to estimate the distance headway between the vehicles on a specific road section, and the postprocessed distance headway data are finally used to estimate the spatiotemporal traffic density. The innovation aspect of the proposed methodology in this study is that traffic density can be estimated in high accuracy only with a small size of data points in support of ADAS. On the other hand, existing density estimation method requires a large number of probe vehicles and its numerous data sets including either the global positioning system data or the dedicated short-range communication data. To verify the proposed methodology, a two-step evaluation is performed: the first step is a numerical evaluation that estimates the spatiotemporal traffic density based on the simulated vehicle trajectory data, and the second step is an empirical evaluation that estimates the density based on the real-road data in both peak and nonpeak periods. Beyond the methodology development, this study verified the estimation reliability of traffic density under various traffic conditions based on the sampling rate of ADAS-equipped vehicles. Consequently, the traffic density estimation error decreased as the sampling rate increased. Estimation accuracy of 90% or higher was observed in all scenarios when the sampling rate was 50% or higher. It indicates that fairly accurate traffic density estimation is feasible using probe vehicles that correspond to half of the vehicles driven on the road. Therefore, this practical approach is expected to mitigate the burden of density estimation, particularly in future road systems in which ADAS and autonomous vehicles are prevalent.