Technical Papers
Apr 28, 2012

Using Truck Probe GPS Data to Identify and Rank Roadway Bottlenecks

Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 139, Issue 1

Abstract

This paper describes the development of a systematic methodology for identifying and ranking bottlenecks using probe data collected by commercial global positioning system fleet management devices mounted on trucks. These data are processed in a geographic information system and assigned to a roadway network to provide performance measures for individual segments. The authors hypothesized that truck speed distributions on these segments can be represented by either a unimodal or bimodal probability density function and proposed a new reliability measure for evaluating roadway performance. Travel performance was classified into three categories: unreliable, reliably fast, and reliably slow. A mixture of two Gaussian distributions was identified as the best fit for the overall distribution of truck speed data. Roadway bottlenecks were ranked on the basis of both the reliability and congestion measurements. The method was used to evaluate the performance of Washington state roadway segments, and proved efficient at identifying and ranking truck bottlenecks.

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References

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Information

Published In

Go to Journal of Transportation Engineering
Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 139Issue 1January 2013
Pages: 1 - 7

History

Received: Nov 17, 2011
Accepted: Apr 25, 2012
Published online: Apr 28, 2012
Published in print: Jan 1, 2013

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Authors

Affiliations

Wenjuan Zhao [email protected]
Freight Policy and Project Manager, Washington State Dept. of Transportation, PO Box 47407, Olympia, WA 98504-7407; formerly, Graduate Research Assistant, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of Washington. E-mail: [email protected]
Edward McCormack [email protected]
Research Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of Washington, Box 352700, Seattle, WA 98195-2700 (corresponding author). E-mail: [email protected]
Daniel J. Dailey [email protected]
Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Univ. of Washington, Box 352500, Seattle, WA 98195-2700. E-mail: [email protected]
Eric Scharnhorst [email protected]
Ph.D. Fellow, Royal Danish Academy of Architecture, Institue of Planning, Copenhagen, Denmark. E-mail: [email protected]

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