Development of cell-based approaches to automatic vehicle locationing.

In many public transport applications it is necessary to identify and locate vehicles as they leave or enter depots and travel through the road network at any time. The development of a novel cell-based Automatic Vehicle Locationing (AVL) system for such an application is presented. The fundamental advantage of the cell-based approach to AVL is that direct communication between the vehicles and the cell-based station enables the vehicle fleet to be polled simultaneously hence enabling frequent update of the bus position in real-time. In particular, the frequent updated information collected from the AVL-equipped bus can be used to support public transport priority at signalized junctions and passenger information systems at bus stations and bus stops. The SIGSIM microscopic traffic simulator is being modified to simulate the proposed cell-based AVL. (A)