Prediction of urban travel times with intersection delays

Although there is an increasing demand for travel time prediction methods, the efforts put on urban streets are until now less than on freeways. In this paper, a macroscopic model of urban link travel time prediction is developed based on measurements collected by single loop detectors. This method divides travel times into two components: link cruising times and intersection delays. For each component the mean prediction and prediction interval were investigated in order to provide a reliable prediction. Prediction intervals around the mean prediction show the plausible range of travel times a vehicle is likely to encounter. Based on simulation data, it is demonstrated that urban link travel time prediction can be executed by this promising method.