Instrumented Vehicle Measured Speed Variation and Freeway Traffic Congestion

This paper investigates the characteristics of speed variation obtained from speed profiles of GPS-equipped instrumented vehicles driven by the participants of the Commute Atlanta Project, an ongoing instrumented vehicle research program deployed in Atlanta, Georgia. In particular, this research effort examines the relationships between acceleration noise and the level of traffic congestion on freeway segments. The results of this study may provide another prospective use of Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) data which are likely to play a significant role in monitoring traffic congestion.