Effects of Traffic Sensor Location on Traffic State Estimation

The necessity for high-density sensor installations and redundancy of sensor information in traffic state estimation is of concern to researchers and practitioners. The influence of different sensor locations on the accuracy of traffic state estimation using a velocity-based cell transmission model and state estimation with an Ensemble Kalman Filter was studied and tested on a segment of the Tokyo Metropolitan Highway during rush hours. It showed the estimated velocity changes significantly when the interval is extended from 200 m to about 400 m, but is acceptable at about 300 m. Sensor locations are critical when reducing sensor numbers. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the Program Committee