floatingcar
Floating car data (FCD) refers to traffic information derived from the movement of individual vehicles equipped with positioning devices, notably GPS. In this context, a "floating car" acts as a moving probe that reveals speeds and travel times on road segments, enabling estimation of network performance without relying solely on fixed sensors.
Data sources include taxi fleets, delivery and courier vehicles, fleet telematics, ride-hailing services, and consumer smartphones.
Applications encompass real-time traffic monitoring, congestion detection, travel-time reliability analysis, incident detection, route planning, and calibration
Limitations involve sampling biases toward equipped or smartphone users, privacy and regulatory concerns, data quality issues
Originating in the late 20th century as researchers explored probe-vehicle methods for traffic measurement, the floating-car