S.R. 23 Origin Destination Study Utilizing Bluetooth Technology
Client: The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT)
Challenge
The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) commissioned a study to identify the current traffic patterns on S.R. 23 in Jacksonville, FL in response to recent changes to the corridor including a new interchange at I-10 and a new intersection at Plantation Oaks Boulevard. FDOT is evaluating plans to upgrade and toll S.R. 23 between I-10 to the north and S.R. 21 to the south. The future tolled facility will feature four lanes along the entire 15 mile corridor and use electronic toll collection transponder technology. This study aimed to capture the major travel movements along S.R. 23 and provide insight into the average travel speed conditions experienced by travelers.
Initiative
RSG coordinated with FDOT to identify 14 main travel movements along the corridor which needed to be updated in the travel demand model. RSG proposed using the Bluetooth technology due to the time and cost savings vis-à-vis traditional data collection methods. Further, the quantity and granularity of the data is far greater than other methods which allows for more robust analysis.
Fourteen Bluetooth traffic surveillance monitors were deployed along the S.R. 23 corridor for approximately one week during the spring of 2011 to:
- Develop origin-destination (OD) matrices summarizing the travel movements between each sensor
- Compute mean travel time information for the travel movements between each sensor
Results
The Bluetooth technology and RSG’s analysis provided FDOT with actionable results that could be implemented in the travel demand forecast in a timely manner. RSG developed hourly level estimates of travel time and average speed for all 182 unique sensor pairs by comparing the time stamps for each Bluetooth sensor and known road distances between sensor pairs. Route specific OD matrices were developed using the nearly 47,000 unique trips observed during the data collection. FDOT used the results of this work to verify the current travel patterns observed in their travel demand model and as an after model adjustment tool for future year forecasts.
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