Reliability of Bluetooth Technology for Travel Time Estimation

A unique Bluetooth-enabled device may be detected several times or not at all when it passes a sensor location. This depends mainly on the strength and speed of a transmitting device, discovery procedure, location of the device relative to the Bluetooth sensor, the Bluetooth sensor's ping cycle (0.1 s), the size and shape of the sensor's detection zone, and the time span for which the Bluetooth-enabled device is within the detection zone. The influences of size of Bluetooth sensor detection zones and Bluetooth discovery procedure on multiple detection events have been mentioned in previous research. However, their corresponding impacts on accuracy and reliability of estimated travel time have not been evaluated. In this study, a controlled field experiment is conducted to collect both Bluetooth and global positioning system (GPS) data for 1000 trips to be used as the basis for evaluation. Data obtained by GPS logger are used to calculate actual travel time, referred to as ground truth, and to geo-code the Bluetooth detection events. In this setting, reliability is defined as the percentage of devices captured per trip during the experiment. It is found that, on average, Bluetooth-enabled devices will be detected 80% of the time while passing a sensor location. The impact of location ambiguity caused by the size of the detection zone is evaluated using geo-coded Bluetooth data. Results show that more than 80% of the detection events are recorded within the range of 100 m from the sensor center line. It is also shown that short-range antennas detect Bluetooth-enabled devices in a location closer to the sensor, thus providing a more accurate travel time estimate. However, the smaller the size of the detection zone, the lower is the penetration rate, which could itself influence the accuracy of estimates. Therefore, there has to be a trade-off between acceptable level of location ambiguity and penetration rate for configuration and coverage of the antennas.