The impact of traffic congestion on people’s quality of life imposes significant and increasing economic costs as identified in the Eddington Report and relates to other important priorities including air quality and climate change. Average Journey Time systems contributes to the evidence needed to show how well an authority is performing its network management duties.

Average Journey Time can be tracked over time to see how an authority is managing the road network, and how well it is managing the impact of changing demand for travel, and to assess the impact of its planned improvement. Consequently, average journey time information, provides an evidence-based, targeted approach to tackling congestion.

The TDC Systems HI-TRAC BLUE Traffic Impact Analysis system provides a low-cost , easily deployable solution to collection Average Journey Time and Traffic Origin and Destination data. The HI-TRAC BLUE Traffic Impact Analysis System uses Bluetooth signals to derive Traffic Journey Time information as well as Traffic Movements.

The HI-TRAC BLUE reads the unique MAC address of Bluetooth devices that are passing the system. Bluetooth devices include mobile phones, PDA’s, hand-free kits, GPS onboard units, laptops, etc. The MAC address data is transmitted by the HI-TRAC BLUE device via GPRS or cabled Ethernet TCP/IP connection to a central server and database. MAC addresses from other HI-TRAC BLUE systems are matched to determine traffic journey times and movements.

The HI-TRAC BLUE provides “Invisible detection” for the owner of the detected Bluetooth device. The detection process is unnoticeable for the owner. The device information collected by the HI-TRAC BLUE cannot be associated with the device’s owner, whose privacy and user information is guaranteed. The received Bluetooth MAC Addresses are truncated and then fully encrypted before transmission.