Link Density Inference from Cellular Infrastructure

This work explores the problem of estimating road link densities from cellular tower signals by mobile subscribers in urban areas. The authors pose the estimation problem as a quadratic program, and present a robust framework that produces vehicle density estimates and is suitable for large-scale problems. The authors demonstrate that both simple and sophisticated models of cellular network connections can be handled robustly by the framework, without sacrificing efficiency or scalability. The authors present a numerical experiment on the I-15 corridor in San Diego based on a calibrated Aimsun microsimulation and a simulated cell network, demonstrating the framework can practically be implemented as part of an integrated corridor management system. The numerical results demonstrate that when the cell phone connection model is chosen appropriately, the estimates are consistent with those observed in a microsimulation.