Collaborative traffic sensing: a case study of a mobile phone based traffic management system

In this paper we present LuxTraffic, a novel collaborative traffic sensing system that makes use of smartphones to collect traffic critical information in the country of Luxembourg. We have developed mobile applications that monitors traffic conditions in real time by periodically sending location and velocity information to a central server via the mobile data network. By aggregating information from a community of participants, LuxTraffic is able to accurately reconstruct the traffic conditions on the monitored road network and provide traffic services to participants. In this paper we provide an insight on the architecture and interworking of the system. By means of an experimental validation, we show that LuxTraffic can accurately identify congestions and suggest alternative routes to the users. Further, we provide a preliminary statistical evaluation of the data collected by the LuxTraffic participants providing important insights on the traffic characteristics in Luxembourg.