The Evolution of Bluetooth Detection Rates

Bluetooth detection is a valuable source to gather data about travel times and traffic state in road networks aiming for the goals of better traffic information and traffic management. Just like for all other available traffic data sources, road operators and authorities rely on a reliable quality of the data collection to fulfil their goal of higher traffic efficiency. First, this data quality depends on the reliability of each individual data set and second on the quantity of data sets, specified by the detection rate. Whereas the quality of Bluetooth-detected travel times has already been discussed in several studies, this research investigates the evolution of detection rates over the past decade in the freeway network of the state of Bavaria, Germany. The objective is to provide reliable information about the current potential and the current trends in the detection rates to road authorities who plan the installation of Bluetooth detection technology. For this purpose, the detection rates, defined by the share of detected vehicles with Bluetooth amongst the overall traffic volume measured with induction loops, were evaluated for this study. The results based on more than 1.7 billion individual Bluetooth detections show a quite steady Bluetooth detection rate of around 25 % since the beginning of measurements in 2009. Additionally, the results show a large systematic bias within the data due to the higher equipment rate with Bluetooth devices amongst trucks, which are equipped about five times more often than regular passenger cars.     «

Bluetooth detection is a valuable source to gather data about travel times and traffic state in road networks aiming for the goals of better traffic information and traffic management. Just like for all other available traffic data sources, road operators and authorities rely on a reliable quality of the data collection to fulfil their goal of higher traffic efficiency. First, this data quality depends on the reliability of each individual data set and second on the quantity of data sets, specif...     »