travel time estimation and prediction using mobile phones: a cost effective method for developing countries

Conventional data collection methods lack real time information and involve excessive cost of installation and maintenance. A real-time, low cost travel time data collection system can be developed using mobile phones. This project examines the use of mobile phones for travel time prediction of public transit vehicles and develops a dynamic travel time prediction model. Personnel were employed in public transit vehicles with mobile phones and these mobile phones were tracked continuously. Space information of the mobile phones represents the position of the buses and movement pattern of these mobile phones in turn represents the movement pattern of the public buses. The starting and arrival time at sections obtained from the cellular database were used to get the travel time and speed. Results obtained were statistically significant and it shows that use of mobile phone for travel time data collection is a low cost data collection technique for Indian cities.