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Is Bus Overrepresented in Bluetooth MAC Scanner data? Is MAC-ID Really Unique?

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Abstract

One of the concerns about the use of Bluetooth MAC Scanner (BMS) data, especially from urban arterial, is the bias in the travel time estimates from multiple Bluetooth devices being transported by a vehicle. For instance, if a bus is transporting 20 passengers with Bluetooth equipped mobile phones, then the discovery of these mobile phones by BMS will be considered as 20 different vehicles, and the average travel time along the corridor estimated from the BMS data will be biased with the travel time from the bus. This paper integrates Bus Vehicle Identification system with BMS network to empirically evaluate such bias, if any. The paper also reports an interesting finding on the uniqueness of MAC-IDs.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Brisbane City Council, The Queensland Department of Main Roads, Smart Transport Research Centre and Queensland University of Technology for supporting this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Smart Transport Research Centre, Science and Engineering Faculty, Civil Engineering and Build Environment School, Queensland University of Technology, George St. GPO, Box 2434, Brisbane, QLD, 4001, Australia

    Ashish Bhaskar, Le Minh Kieu, Ming Qu, Alfredo Nantes, Marc Miska & Edward Chung

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  1. Ashish Bhaskar
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  2. Le Minh Kieu
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  3. Ming Qu
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  4. Alfredo Nantes
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  5. Marc Miska
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  6. Edward Chung
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Correspondence to Ashish Bhaskar.

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Bhaskar, A., Kieu, L.M., Qu, M. et al. Is Bus Overrepresented in Bluetooth MAC Scanner data? Is MAC-ID Really Unique?. Int. J. ITS Res. 13, 119–130 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13177-014-0089-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13177-014-0089-9

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