Determination of Number of Probe Vehicles Required for Reliable Travel Time Measurement in Urban Network

Several intelligent vehicle—highway system demonstration projects are currently assessing the feasibility of using probe vehicles to collect realtime traffic data for advanced traffic management and information systems. They have used a variety of criteria to determine the number of probes necessary, but few generalizable algorithms have been developed and tested. The described algorithm explicitly considers the time period for travel time estimation (e.g., 5, 10, or 15 min), the number of replications of travel time desired for each link during each measurement period (reliability criterion), the proportion of links to be covered, and the length of the peak period. This algorithm is implemented by using a simulation of the Sacramento Network (170 mi2) for the morning peak period. The results indicate that the number of probe vehicles required increases nonlinearly as the reliability criterion is made more stringent. More probes are required for shorter measurement periods. As the desired proportion of li...