Measuring real-time traffic data quality based on Floating Car Data

Congestion is a growing and global problem, impacting the majority of people traveling and goods moving. Governments are challenged to keep the traffic flowing, to reduce pollution and decrease the economic damage caused by congestion. Highly accurate traffic information helps governments to reach their goals to become smart and sustainable. Due to the increasing volume of connected navigation devices in the market (PNDs, smartphone applications, in-dash devices) Floating Car Data (FCD) becomes widely available. When this data is matched with a map and processed in a traffic fusion process real-time traffic solutions including traffic incidents and traffic flow are created. However, FCD comes in many different qualities. To guarantee the quality, different techniques need to be incorporated into the fusion process, including the abilities to measure the quality of delay data, the quality of transit time data and the quality of journalistic incident data.