Travel Time Estimation in Stockholm Using Historical GPS Data

Abstract: The current traffic situation in Stockholm with heavy traffic and congested roads makes accurate travel time estimation both difficult and important for several different types of businesses. In this thesis a method of estimating travel time based on historical GPS data from taxi vehicles is presented. One of the major problems faced is to match the reported GPS location to a position in the actual road network. The proposed probabilistic method for finding the most likely position includes two features, the travel time of the vehicle and distance of the GPS error. The historical GPS data is analyzed in order to create a database with historical traffic patterns; average velocities for different roads at different times are logged. To create and estimation the route is estimated using the path finding algorithm A' and the expected traffic patterns are found from the historical data. When comparing the travel time estimation to known travel times, the method display promising results with a mean average percentage error of 16.8%.