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Virginia Tech

A System for Travel Time Estimation on Urban Freeways

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Travel time information is important for Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS) applications. People traveling on urban freeways are interested in knowing how long it will take them to reach their destinations, particularly under congested conditions. Though many advances have been made in the field of traffic engineering and ITS applications, there is a lack of practical travel time estimation procedures for ATIS applications. Automatic Vehicle Identification (AVI) and Geographic Information System (GPS) technologies can be used to directly estimate travel times, but they are not yet economically viable and not widely deployed in urban areas. Hence, data from loop detectors or other point estimators of traffic flow variables are predominantly used for travel time estimation. Most point detectors can provide this data efficiently. Some attempts have been made in the past to estimate travel times from point estimates of traffic variables, but they are not comprehensive and are valid for only particular cases of freeway conditions. Moreover, most of these methods are statistical and thus limited to the type of situations for which they were developed and are not of much general use. The purpose of current research is to develop a comprehensive system for travel time estimation on urban freeways for ATIS applications. The system is based on point estimates of traffic variables obtained from detectors. The output required from the detectors is flow and occupancy aggregated for a short time interval of 5 minutes. The system for travel time estimation is based on the traffic flow theory rather than statistical methods. The travel times calculated using this system are compared with the results of FHWA simulation package TSIS 5.0 and the estimation system is found to give reasonable and comparable results when compared with TSIS results.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Civil Engineering
Department dc:contributor.department
Civil Engineering
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2002

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Dhulipala, Sudheer
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Hobeika, Antoine G.
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Trani, Antoino A.
  • Teodorovic, Dusan

Subjects

dc:subject × 5

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
etd-06052002-154359
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/33426

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-24
Source record
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citation

Dhulipala, Sudheer. A System for Travel Time Estimation on Urban Freeways. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/33426