A Synthesis of emerging data collection technologies and their impact on traffic management applications

European Transport Research Review

An Open Access Journal

Table 1 Main types of data collected by each sensor type

		Data collection technologies
		Point sensors			Point-to-point			Area-wide
		Loop detectors	Radar/infrared/acoustic sensors	CCTV cameras	License plate recognition	GPS/cell-phone tracking	transponder-based (1)	Airborne sensors	AVL
Data collection capabilities	(Point) flows	√	√	√			√^c
	(Point) speeds	√	√	√		(3)
	Occupancies	√		√
	Subpath flows				√^a	√	√^a,c	√	√^b
	Route choice fractions				√^a	√	√^a,c	√
	OD flows				√^a	√	√^a,c	√
	Travel times				√^a	√	√^a,c	√	√^b
	Vehicle classification	√	√	√			√	√
	Paths				(2)	√	(2)	√	√^a

(1) This technology could be used to collect practically any type of information from the vehicle (including speed profiles, origin, destination, and path). In this table, only the information that can be collected by "dumb" transponders, that simply report a unique vehicle signature, is reported
(2) Possible with a dense network of detectors
(3) When combined with GPS
^aData limited by network design
^bData limited by market penetration
^cindirect; for the sample of equipped vehicles only