Optimal Location of Traffic Counting Points for Transport Network Control

An iterative two-stage procedure is proposed that first derives the complete traffic flow vector on a transport network and then produces a reliable estimate of the Origin/Destination (O/D) trip matrix. The procedure is based on the measured flows provided by a minimal-cost set of traffic sensors. These are located on the network by solving a suitable combinatorial optimization model through a number of heuristics that achieve good performances. It is shown that solving the sensor location problem may significantly improve the accuracy of common O/D estimation procedures.