A novel algorithm to identifying vehicle travel path in elevated road area based on GPS trajectory data

In recent years, the increasing development of traffic information collection technology based on floating car data has been recognized, which gives rise to the establishment of real-time traffic information dissemination system in many cities. However, the recent massive construction of urban elevated roads hinders the processing of corresponding GPS data and further extraction of traffic information (e. g., identifying the real travel path), as a result of the frequent transfer of vehicles between ground and elevated road travel. Consequently, an algorithm for identifying the travel road type (i. e., elevated or ground road) of vehicles is designed based on the vehicle traveling features, geometric and topological characteristics of the elevated road network, and a trajectory model proposed in the present study. To be specific, the proposed algorithm can detect the places where a vehicle enters, leaves or crosses under elevated roads. An experiment of 10 sample taxis in Shanghai, China was conducted, and the comparison of our results and results that are obtained from visual interpretation validates the proposed algorithm.