Designing AVI Sensors for Freeway Corridors Based on Matrix Operation

In order to improve the level of operational monitoring and management on freeways, this paper develops an optimal model for AVI (automatic vehicle identification) sensor locations on freeways, where the maximized monitored total weight vehicle-kilometers is considered as the optimal object. First, according to the characteristics of a freeway corridor, a new method is proposed to replace the direct graph topological structure extraction method. After that, the incidence matrix, adjacency matrix of the topological graph and the relationship matrix between link and origin-destination paths are chosen as input parameters; the calculation method of the monitored total vehicle-kilometers is then established by matrix operations. Then, the optimal model about maximum vehicle-kilometers is developed. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed optimal model is evaluated through a simple example. The results show that the proposed model is feasible for freeways, and the principles of maximum sensor coverage and maximum traffic flow are considered.