A Data-Driven Intersection Geometry Mapping Technique to Enhance the Scalability of Trajectory-Based Traffic Signal Performance Measures

Abstract

Connected vehicle (CV) trajectory data provides practitioners with opportunities to assess traffic signal performance with no investment in detection or communication infrastructure. With over 500 billion trajectory records generated each month in the United States, operations can be evaluated virtually at any of the over 400,000 traffic signals in the nation. The manual intersection mapping required to generate accurate movement-level trajectory-based performance estimations is the most time-consuming aspect of using CV data to evaluate traffic signal operations. Various studies have utilized vehicle location data to update and create maps; however, most proposed mapping techniques focus on the identification of roadway characteristics that facilitate vehicle navigation and not on the scaling of traffic signal performance measures. This paper presents a technique that uses commercial CV trajectory and open-source OpenStreetMap (OSM) data to automatically map intersection centers and approach areas of interest to estimate signal performance. OSM traffic signal tags are processed to obtain intersection centers. CV data is then used to extract intersection geometry characteristics surrounding the intersection. To demonstrate the proposed technique, intersection geometry is mapped at 500 locations from which trajectory-based traffic signal performance measures are estimated. The results are compared to those obtained from manual geometry definitions. Statistical tests found that at a 99% confidence level, upstream-focused performance estimations are strongly correlated between both methodologies. The presented technique will aid agencies in scaling traffic signal assessment as it significantly reduces the amount of manual labor required.