Highway traffic status abstraction via dedicated short range communication on-board units

The ability and efficiency of abstracting highway operating status are determined by data collection cost, equipment reliability, and other factors. Thus it has always been a significant demand for low installation and maintenance cost, solid and efficient equipment with rational and reliable data analysis methodology, which corporately could provide accurate traffic prediction. This paper proposed a method for obtaining traffic situation based on widely used ETC dedicated short range communication (DSRC) device, and investigated its feasibility for dynamic highway operating status abstracting. In addition, some detailed operating index, such as section average travel time, average travel speed, etc., were estimated, and with these indexes, a highway section congestion degree model and a travel time prediction model were established. Furthermore, a pilot study on Jingjintang Expressway near Beijing was conducted, and the results of DSRC data exploring showed that the proposed traffic condition obtaining method could accurately reflect the actual traffic condition.