Traffic Turk Evaluation

Gowrishankar, Sudeep; Work, Daniel B.

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/48995 Copy

Description

Title

Traffic Turk Evaluation

Author(s)

• Gowrishankar, Sudeep
• Work, Daniel B.

Issue Date

2014-04

Keyword(s)

• Traffic Turk
• special events
• traffic monitoring
• turning movement counter

Abstract

This report summarizes a project undertaken by the University of Illinois on behalf of the Illinois Department of Transportation to evaluate a smartphone application called TrafficTurk for traffic safety and traffic monitoring applications. TrafficTurk is a smartphone-based turning movement counter that was developed at the University of Illinois to allow large-scale traffic data collection during large events. TrafficTurk data can be used for real-time decision-making or to assist in future event traffic management plans. The application was evaluated on the 2013 Farm Progress Show, which is the largest outdoor farm show in the United States and is held in Decatur every two years. Apart from the large amount of delay caused by the traffic congestion during this time, there are also specific safety concerns that have been raised by the Macon County Highway Department. In particular, vehicles tend to queue on I-72 just upstream of exit ramp at IL 48. Because I-72 is a high-speed roadway, stopped vehicles are susceptible to high-speed rear-end collisions. The collected traffic data was specifically used to analyze the arrival rates of traffic at each of the counting locations and the possibility of re-routing traffic from the eastern, northern, and western approaches to the show. The application also collected information on the data latency and energy efficiency of the application in order to provide insights on the feasibility, scalability, and scope of future deployments. The analysis of data focused on estimating the traffic density across the road network surrounding the show. An algorithm was developed to quantify traffic congestion on each road segment, which was then used to analyze traffic re-routing.

Publisher

Illinois Center for Transportation/Illinois Department of Transportation

Series/Report Name or Number

Illinois Center for Transportation Series No. 14-008

ISSN

0197-9191

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/48995

Sponsor(s)/Grant Number(s)

R27-SP24

Copyright and License Information

No restrictions. This document is available to the public through the National Technical Information Service, Springfield, Virginia 22161

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