A traffic volume estimation from probe vehicle trajectories

Abstract

Abstract This paper proposes a traffic volume estimation method which only requires probe vehicle trajec- tories data. The proposed method estimates traffic volumes （states） at intermediate locations between two consecutive probe vehicles by using the kinematic wave theory. This enables us to fully utilize rich infor- mation of probe vehicle trajectories which include driving modes and reflect traffic conditions. By testing the method using real-world data, we demonstrate that the traffic volumes can be estimated by low-frequency probe vehicle data when traffic states are congested.