Travel time estimation oriented freeway sensor placement problem considering sensor failure

Optimal sensor placement on freeway corridor is of great interest to transportation authorities. However, current traffic sensors are easily subject to various failures. Therefore, it is necessary to incorporate sensor failure into the optimal sensor placement model. In this article, a two-stage stochastic model is proposed for the purpose of travel time estimation on freeway corridor. To balance the effectiveness and reliability, a stochastic conditional value at risk (CVaR) model is also proposed. Since both models are too complicated, a customized genetic algorithm is developed. Numerical experiments show that considering sensor failure makes a significant performance improvement in the sensor placement pattern. Sensitivity analysis is also applied to investigate the impact of a number of allowable sensors and different traffic sensor failure probability.