A NEW, PROBE VEHICLE-BASED FLOATING CAR DATA SYSTEM: CONCEPT, IMPLEMENTATION AND PILOT STUDY

The Dutch Ministry of Transport, Directorate Rijkswaterstaat, launched a pilot study to test the technical and operational feasibility of an advanced, automated Floating Car Data (FCD) system using probe cars. This study, called PRELUDE, was awarded to a consortium consisting of Peek Traffic, ARS Traffic and Transport Technology, Hague Consulting Group, KPN Telecom and IMIS. The main objective of the PRELUDE pilot was to determine whether it is possible to generate, using an FCD system (to be newly developed), sufficiently accurate travel time information for inter-urban motorways, but particularly also for urban routes. In this article the reasons for the development of the new Floating Car Data system, how it was implemented and the main results of the pilot application are described. The article concludes by indicating some further directions and potential new markets for the system such as the use of portable global positioning systems (GPS) to record travel data.