Arterial Travel Time Using Bluetooth

Project Description

The Bluetooth-based travel time measurement network is on CSAH 81 in Hennepin County. The system estimates travel time along an arterial by reading the Bluetooth addresses of Bluetooth enabled devices in vehicles passing a point on the roadway and matching them with addresses read at six different points on the roadway.

Project objectives include demonstrating how travel time information may be used as a performance measure for arterial traffic management and operations, and how it might be disseminated as traveler information (e.g., displayed on Google maps); and to derive practical deployment guidelines, as well as a nucleus for subsequent expansion of the technology in Minnesota.

Lessons Learned

Project findings identified that collected/analyzed Bluetooth data could be of use to transportation engineers and planners in the following ways:

• To assist in the prioritization of signal timing projects
• For public travel time information purposes
• In post-construction review of corridor travel speeds
• For transportation system planning purposes
• For integration with regional/county traveler information systems
• As a transportation system measure of traffic flow performance

Project Benefits

• This project demonstrated that Bluetooth technology can be used to obtain accurate travel time information along arterials in a cost-effective manner.
• Travel time can be used as a performance measurement for arterial traffic flow.