Physical and Virtual Cell Phone Sensors for Traffic Control: Algorithms and Deployment Impact
Venue
2016 IEEE Sensors Application Symposium
Publication Year
2016
Authors
Shumeet Baluja, Michele Covell, Rahul Sukthankar
BibTeX
Abstract
Decades of research have been directed towards improving the timing of traffic
lights. The ubiquity of cell phones among drivers has created the opportunity to
design new sensors for traffic light controllers. These new sensors, which search
for radio signals that are constantly emanating from cell phones, hold the hope of
replacing the typical induction-loop sensors that are installed within road
pavements. A replacement to induction sensors is desired as they require
significant roadwork to install, frequent maintenance and checkups, are sensitive
to proper repairs and installation work, and the construction techniques,
materials, and even surrounding unrelated ground work can be sources of failure.
However, before cell phone sensors can be widely deployed, users must become
comfortable with the passive use of their cell phones by municipalities for this
purpose. Despite complete anonymization, public privacy concerns may remain. This
presents a chicken-and-egg problem: without showing the benefits of using cell
phones for traffic monitoring, users may not be willing to allow this use. In this
paper, we show that by carefully training the traffic light controllers, we can
unlock the benefits of these sensors when only a small fraction of users allow
their cell phones to be used. Surprisingly, even when there is only small
percentage of opted-in users, the new traffic controllers provide large benefits to
all drivers
