Vehicle traffic monitoring using cellular telephone location and velocity data

摘要

A vehicular traffic monitoring system communicates with a plurality of mobile communication devices carried in moving vehicles and capable of determining their respective geographic positions and velocities. A data collector receives data samples from the plurality of mobile communication devices, each data sample comprising instantaneous location and velocity information of a respective mobile telephone at a respective time. A road segment identifier is coupled to the data at the collector for matching data samples wherein a respective instantaneous location corresponds to one of a plurality of road segments monitored by the traffic monitoring system. A sliding average calculator coupled to the road segment identifier determines an average speed corresponding to matched data samples for a particular one of the road segments in response to a predetermined sliding window. A state change detector coupled to the sliding average calculator detects a traffic state change at the road segment in response to the average speed in the predetermined sliding window determined at first and second times. A congestion alerting mechanism coupled to the state change detector routes notifications when the respective road segment state changes (either to a congested state or a clear state).