2010 International Conference on Intelligent Network and Computing (ICINC 2010)

Using artificial neural network to estimate average speed of vehicles in rural roads

Abbas Mahmoudabadi
PhD Candidate, Technical and Engineering Faculty, Payam-e-Noor University & General Director of Traffic Safety
Department, Road Maintenance and Transportation Organization, Tehran, Iran
E-mail: mahmoudabadi@phd.pnu.ac.ir

Abstract—Average speed of vehicles, one of the main
parameters in traffic engineering, has been widely used
particularly in road and safety equipment designing and road
working. In this paper, an artificial neural network model has
been developed for estimating average speed of vehicles in
rural roads. Road type, day time, traffic volume, and
proportion of heavy vehicles have been considered as the
major effective parameters for estimating average speed of
vehicles. Assuming at least 85 percent of total deviations is
remained, principle component analysis technique has been
used to ensure that input variables have not inter-relation. Two
types of regression models, including simple and weighted
linear regression models have also been developed and
proposed neural network model has been evaluated by
comparing the mean square errors with their performances.
Results showed that artificial neural network with the best
performance measure (least mean square errors) can be used
to estimate the average speed of vehicles regarding to the main
influential parameters in road traffic engineering. Results also
showed that the performance measure of neural network can
be improved when a appropriate network is considered.
Keywords-Estimating models, Average speed, Traffic Volume,
Principle Component Analysis, Artificial Neural Network,
Multiple Regression
I. INTRODUCTION
Traffic parameters are widely used in process of decision
making and road designing in urban and rural transportation.
Estimating of traffic parameters is main concern of
researchers because achieving the survey-based parameters is
an expensive activity. Speed is one of traffic parameters
witch is widely used in road traffic planning, so it is vital that
model must be developed to estimate speed based on
achievable parameters and minimum errors.
Statistical models have frequently been used in highway
safety studies. They can be utilized for various purposes,
including establishing relationships between variables,
screening covariates and predicting values [1]. In the recent
years, artificial neural network has been used to estimate the
several kinds of traffic parameters. Fallah Tafti [2] used an
artificial neural network model to simulate traffic flow in the
vicinity of merges and estimate the average time of journey.
Based on the good results in validation process, he suggested
that artificial neural network models can be used to
validation of performance in different purposes.
Wa’el and Awad [3] developed a neural network model
for estimating the traffic capacity in weaving areas.
Geometric design, speed, length, traffic volume, and number
of lanes have been considered as the major effective
parameters in traffic capacity analysis. Their results showed
that neural networks can be used as appropriate model
comparing with linear regression models for analyzing the
capacity in weaving areas.
Ngwangwa, Heyns, Labuschagne, and Kululanga [4]
utilized an artificial neural network that reconstructs road
surface profiles from measured vehicle accelerations for road
damage assessment and demonstrated the capabilities of their
methodology in the presence of noise, changing vehicle mass,
changing vehicle speeds and road defects.
Tong and Hung [5] developed an artificial neural
network model for estimating the discharge headway of
individual queued vehicle in intersections. By utilizing the
back propagation algorithm in training and sensitivity
analysis, they concluded that the neural network model
performed better than the other models to discharge headway
estimates for individual vehicles. Chang and Su [6] also
showed the same results by developing artificial neural
network models for predicting intersection queue. Their
proposed models are capable of providing prediction
accuracy more than 90% at 3 time-steps ahead.
Zhang and Forshaw [7] used an artificial neural network
model for analyzing traffic volume, speed and traffic
direction, where generated data via closed circuit television
system was considered as input data. They combined model
and CCTV system and showed that combination of image
processing techniques and neural network based model have
an appropriate ability to be used for traffic analysis concerns.
Srinivasan, Sharma, and Toh [8] presented an artificial
neural network model based on multivariate techniques for
incident recognition in freeways. They used data reduction
techniques for reducing the variables even a non-linear
model can be used for incident recognition in freeways.
Dia [9] developed an object-oriented neural network
model for predicting short-term traffic conditions on a
section of highway and showed that model is capable of
predicting speed up to 5 minutes into the future with a high
degree of accuracy of 90 to 94%.
Traffic parameters have complicated effects in speed that
drivers chose to drive vehicles [10]. This characteristics and
the concept behind of neural network modeling known as
black box are the same so speed may be results of some
parameters which have direct or indirect effects in each other
via linear or non-linear models [10].
Conductive loops are widely used for data gathering in
urban and rural road and comparing their stored data and the
results of output models would be considered in validation
process of developing traffic models because conductive

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 2010 International Conference on Intelligent Network and Computing (ICINC 2010)
loops have appropriate role in data gathering for traffic
measures [11]. Because collecting reliable length data from
single and dual loop detectors has been considered
impossible due to the noisy speed estimates provided by
conventional data aggregation at single-loop detectors,
Coifman and kim [12] presented a methodology to use
single-loop detector to classify vehicles and speed estimation
in freeways.
In this paper, an artificial neural network model has been
developed to estimate the average speed of vehicles, in
which traffic volume, daytime, road geometric design, and
the proportion of heavy vehicles are considered as input
variables. Because neural network models have a sensitive
reaction regarding to training data [13], a data analyzing has
been proposed to check the validity of model based on
different set of training, validation, and testing data. Principle
component analysis, a well-known statistical technique, has
also been used to be confident that input variables do not
have inter-relations. %85 of variation had been considered to
be remained and existing of all variables in proposed models
has been checked. Two kinds of widely used statistical
models including simple and weighted linear regression
models have been developed to validate the performance of
proposed neural network model.
II. ESTIMATING MODELS
There are various kinds of models that are used for
estimating parameters in road safety. Regression models are
known as common, because of simplicity. In this section a
brief discussion of simple and weighted linear regression and
artificial neural network models are presented.
A. Simple linear regression
Minimizing the mean square errors between observations
and model outputs is the main concern behind the setting
parameters of simple linear regression models [14]. Two
kinds of variables including independent and dependent
variables are used in modeling named multivariate linear
regression mode if there are more than one variable as
independent variables [14]. Therefore, model set relationship
between independent variables X1, X2, . . . Xn, and dependent
variable Y by the equation (1). In the equation (1),
coefficients β0, β1, β2, β3 . . . and βn must be set based on
minimizing the mean square errors between observations and
model outputs.
Y = β 0 + β1 X 1 + β 2 X 2 + β 3 X 3 + ... + β n X n (1)
B. Weighted Regression model
When it is considered that the effects of independent
variables on dependent variable are power-based, the model
called weighted linear regression. Parameters are being
calculated based on the minimum of mean or total square
errors between observations and model outputs [15]. It is
obvious that multivariate regression model can be defined
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when independent variables X1, X2, . . . Xn and dependent
variable Y are defined as equation (2) shows.
Y = β0 + β1 X1P1 + β2 X2P2 + β3 X3P3 + ...+ βn XnPn (2)
In equation (2) coefficients β0, β1, β2, β3 . . . and βn and p1,
p2, p3… and pn are being estimated regarding to the
minimizing the mean or total square errors between
observations and the model outputs.
C. Artificial neural network model
In the neural network model, the neuron is the basic
component [16]. Each neuron of a layer is connected to each
neuron of the next layer from the input layer to the output
layer through the hidden layers as shown in figure 1 [16].
In this structure the output Yi of each neuron of the nth
layer is defined by a derivable non-linear function F by
equation (3) where F is the non-linear activation function, wji
are the weights of the connection between the neuron Nj and
Ni, yi is the output of the neuron of the (n−1)th layer [16]. The
most common used of validation criteria is mean or sum
square errors between observations and model outputs.
Figure 1. General view of neural network model
⎛ ⎞
y i = F ⎜⎜ ∑w ji y j ⎟⎟ (3)
⎝ j ⎠
III. DATA GATHERING
Input data including average speed, traffic volume, road
geometric design, daytime, and proportion of heave vehicles
in 461 days have been gathered in different months and
different topography. Freeway, highway, and main road are
three types of geometric design roads are considered as input
parameters 1, 2, and 3 respectively. Daytime has been
calculated based on the length of day from sunrise to sunset
divided to 24. Traffic volume, the proportion of heavy
vehicles, and average speed of vehicles have been collected
via conductive loops installed in rural roads.
A. Normalized Data
Data have been converted to normal type by equation (4),
which is commonly used to normalize data, where n is the
number of observations [17]. The above equation convert
data in to a closed interval of [0 1]. Tables I and II
 2010 International Conference on Intelligent Network and Computing (ICINC 2010)

respectively show the experimental and normalized data of x i ( old ) - x

all variables that are considered in modeling process. As x i ( new ) = (5)
n
shown in table II, the minimum and maximum of standard
types of all variables zero and one respectively. ∑(x i - x)
2

i =1

xi ( old ) xi (min) n -1
xi ( new ) = (4)
xi (max) xi (min) Table III shows the standardized data which have been
converted from original data by equation (5).
TABLE I. EXPERIMENTAL DATA
TABLE III. STANDARDIZED DATA
Variable Experimental Data
Variable Normalized Data
Max. Min. Mean STD
Max. Min. Mean STD
Road Type (R_T) 3 1 1.99 0.816
Road Type (R_T) 1.237 -1.216 0 1
Day Time (D_T) 0.617 0.424 0.518 0.071
Day Time (D_T) 1.396 -1.316 0 1
Traffic Volume (T_V) 59768 800 9793 6356
Traffic Volume (T_V) 7.862 -1.415 0 1
Heavy Vehicle (H_V) 0.72 0.015 0.259 0.154
Heavy Vehicle (H_V) 2.993 -1.576 0 1
Average Speed (A_S) 111 22.5 85 12.6
Average Speed (A_S) 2.057 -5.029 0 1
TABLE II. NORMALISED DATA B. Eigenvalues
Variable Normalized Data Calculating eigen-values is the second stage of PCA.
Max. Min. Mean STD Each score has specific eigen-value ordered descending
Road Type (R_T) 1 0 0.496 0.408 shown in table IV. PCs are uncorrelated so if 85 percent of
Day Time (D_T) 1 0 0.485 0.369
variation is assumed to be remained PC1, PC2, and PC3 with
Traffic Volume (T_V) 1 0 0.153 0.108
Heavy Vehicle (H_V) 1 0 0.345 0.219 cumulative percent of deviation more than eighty five
Average Speed (A_S) 1 0 0.710 0.141 percent, must be considered to the next stage of PCA process
and PC4 can be ignored.
IV. PRINCIPLE COMPONENT ANALYSIS
TABLE IV. PRINCIPLE COMPONENTS
Principle component analysis (PCA) is a statistical
process categorized in data reduction techniques. The PCs Score
Eigen- Variation Cumulative
are the uncorrelated (orthogonal) variables, obtained by value percent percent
PC1 1.9606 49% 49%
multiplying the original correlated variables with the
PC2 1.0220 25% 74%
eigenvector, which is a list of coefficients [17]. Thus, the PC3 0.7864 20% 94%
PCs are weighted linear combinations of the original PC4 0.2310 6% 100%
variables. It is a powerful technique for pattern recognition
that attempts to explain the variance of a large set of inter- C. Loading
correlated variables and transforming into a smaller set of The simple correlation between original variables and
independent (uncorrelated) variables (principal components). scores, is loading [17]. As shown in table V, correlation
Factor analysis further reduces the contribution of less between traffic volume (T_V) and the first score is high,
significant variables obtained from PCA and the new group means that variation of traffic volume is more influential in
of variables, known as vari-factors, is extracted through the first score.
rotating the axis defined by PCA [18]. Selecting the first n
PCs is regarding to eigen-values grater than one or obtaining TABLE V. LOADING
enough deviations mostly 85 percent of whole deviations
Score PC1 PC2 PC3
[17]. The high proportion of deviation, consist of large R_T 0.8795 -0.1882 -0.2898
dimensioned variables, so variables should be homogenous D_T 0.5410 0.9791 -0.1864
in the process of PCA [18]. In this paper, standardized data is Variable
T_V 0.9123 0.0149 -0.2211
used for analyzing the PCA process. L_V -0.5932 -0.1668 -0.7866

A. Standardizing data D. Extracting variables

As it is mentioned briefly in the last section, in PCA
analysis, dimension of variables must be homogenous.
Standardizing data is one of the well known methods to
homogenize data in normal function. Equation (5) converts
original data in different dimension to normal distribution
function with the average of zero and standard deviation of
one, where x(new) is standardized data and x(old) is original
data.
Extracting variables, last stage of principle component
analysis, is based on loadings that are shown in table V. In
this stage Selected PCs must be considered with loading
either more than 0.7 or less that -0.7 [18]. For the first PC it
can be concluded that variables R_T and T_V must be
considered as input variables, by considering PC2 variable
D_T, by considering the PC3 variable L_V would be added
to inputs. In this case it is concluded that all of the variables
R_T, D_T, T_V, and L_V must be considered as input
variables. All of desired loading in table V, which have been

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 2010 International Conference on Intelligent Network and Computing (ICINC 2010)

used in decision process are shown in bold marked style. It is Figure 2. Structure of Artificial Neural Network
concluded that all input variables must be considered as
input variables by considering at least 85 percent of In order to evaluate the model, four structures of
variations. networks with different numbers of neuron in hidden layers
have been analyzed. Four structures including (4-4-1-1), (4-
V. DEVELOPING OF THE MODEL 5-1-1), (4-6-1-1), (4-8-1-1) have been analyzed and (4-8-1-1)
As mentioned briefly in section II.C, the neural network structure is the best one based on mean square errors.
model is consisting of input layer, hidden layer, and output
TABLE VI. CATEGORIZING DATA
layer. In this case, with three input and one output variables,
neural network model must be formed of three neurons in Sample Sample Size (Percent)
input and one neuron in output layer. Hidden layer will be Code Training Validation Testing
different based on the number of observation. If it’s assumed A 323(70) 69(15) 69(15)
B 369(80) 46(10) 46(10)
that the number of observation should not be exceeded than C 415(90) 23(5) 23(5)
ten times of necessary parameters, the maximum number of
hidden neurons in model was calculated as 8. Well-known The numbers of data that are assigned in each category of
software of MATLAB has been used for modeling. Figures 2 training, validating, and testing process have significant
shows artificial neural network model of average speed of effect in the process of model development and network
vehicles and five times of running models have been measures [19]. Three types of categorizing data defined as
considered with stop criteria of 1e-5. sample codes A, B, and C shown in table VI have been
considered in data analysis. The proposed model has been
run five times, using different sample size and network
structure and the average of two criteria measures of
correlation coefficient and mean square errors have been
calculated and shown in table VII.

TABLE VII. MEAN SQUARE ERRORS AND CORRELATION COEFFICIENT

Network Sample Correlation Coefficient Mean Square Error (e-4) Iterations Stopping
Structure Code Train Validate Test Train Validate Test Iteration
A 0.943 0.956 0.931 22 18 28 39 33
4-4-1-1 B 0.963 0.957 0.888 14 30 37 59 59
C 0.917 0.867 0.944 32 53 15 24 18
A 0.980 0.958 0.936 8 12 26 37 31
4-5-1-1 B 0.983 0.976 0.951 6 21 18 64 59
C 0.968 0.899 0.961 13 16 16 12 6
A 0.983 0.954 0.962 7 11 12 25 19
4-6-1-1 B 0.974 0.980 0.980 16 12 9 12 6
C 0.960 0.945 0.943 15 20 38 14 8
A 0.990 0.915 0.963 4 57 15 23 17
4-8-1-1 B 0.970 0.950 0.977 10 30 14 15 9
C 0.972 0.984 0.971 14 7 17 12 6
4-8-1-1 Total 0.9889 4.4 16 10

According to the measures in table VII, it can be

concluded that if the number of neurons in hidden layer is
increased, the number of iterations will be decreased and
network parameters will be improved. When there is no
improvement in mean square errors, iterative calculations are
stopped and network is reached in steady state. Network
measures in three stages of training, validation, and testing
have a reverse behavior depending on the number of data in
each category. It means that network measures will be
improved (mean square errors will be decreased and
correlation coefficient is getting to be close of one) when the
number of data in each category is increased. Figure 3
illustrates a kind of improvement process when mean square
errors have not improvement after 6 iterations.
Figure 3. Stopping Iteration After 6 Iterations

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 2010 International Conference on Intelligent Network and Computing (ICINC 2010)
A. Fitness measure of observations and model outputs
In order to check the fitness measures between
observations and model outputs, four kinds of regression
equations training, validation, test, and all data models can
be analyzed. Results show that the four equations 6 to 9
represent the compatibility between experimental data and
model outputs, which O = output and T = target.
Training: O = 0.92 × T + 0.057 R = 0.963 (6)
Validation: O = 0.92×T + 0.055 R = 0.976 (7)
Test : O = 0.96 × T + 0.034 R = 0.98 (8)
All : O = 0.93 × T + 0.054 R = 0.967 (9)
The coefficients between outputs and observation are
more than 0.85 and distance from origin is less than 0.05, in
all linear regression models based on standardized data, so
the compatibility of data and model is good enough.
VI. REGRESSION MODELS
Proposed model can be validated with the other models,
which may be used for prediction. Simple and weighted
linear regression models have been selected for validation
and well-known software of MATLAB was used for
generating fitness equations. Input and output variables are
defined as below:
R_T: Road geometric design (Road type)
D_T: Daytime
T_V: Traffic volume
L_V: Proportion of heavy vehicles
A_S: Average speed of vehicles
The simple and weighted linear regression models are
fitted as equations (10) and (11) respectively.
A_S= 0.5995 + 0.0913*R_T + 0.0307*D_T - 0.2150*T_V -
0.1366*L_V (10)
A_S= 0.3992 + 0.5080*(R_T)0.052 + 0.1491*(D_T)0.0442 -
0.0652*(T_V)1.3581 - 0.3310*(L_V)9.2510 (11)
In the equation (10), when power coefficient is getting to
raised means the effect of input variable is low because all
data is set in closed interval [0 1] so it means that the
proportion of heavy vehicles in traffic volume has not
significant effect on average speed. Road type and daytime
have direct effects in average speed means that when the
grade of road improved to the next level, average speed will
be increased and vice versa. Traffic volume has reverse
effect, means that when traffic volume is getting to raise
average speed will be decreased and vice versa. The
proportion of heavy vehicle traffic has a reverse effect in
average speed of vehicles means that when it is increased the
average speed will be decreased.
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VII. COMPARING THE MODELS
Mean square errors measure is one of the most applicable
measures which can be used to compare the efficiency of
prediction models [14]. Mean square errors have been
calculated in different types of models and results showed in
table VIII.
TABLE VIII. MEAN SQUARE ERRORS
Model Mean Square errors (e-4)
Artificial Neural Network 4.4
Simple Linear Regression 1316.2
Weighted Linear Regression 145.5
Results in table VIII show that artificial neural model is
the best model with minimum mean square errors as 4.4e-4
and weighted and simple regressions follows that on the
second and third step respectively.
VIII. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
Because of wide application of average speed in road
designing and safety equipments, in this paper an artificial
neural network model has been developed based on effective
parameters data, which collected in 461 days in different
roads and different months. Four main parameters including
road geometric type, daytime, traffic volume, and proportion
of heavy vehicles have been considered as input and average
speed of vehicles as output and data have been converted to
closed interval [0 1]. By assuming at least 85 percent of total
deviations must be remained, principle component analysis
technique has been used to ensure that input variables have
not inter-relation and results show that four assumed variable
must be considered as input variables in modeling. Mean
square errors has been considered as criteria measure for
evaluation and artificial neural network has been evaluated
with simple and weighted linear regression models and
results show that artificial neural network has the best
performance in estimation of average speed. It can be
concluded that road type and daytime have direct effects in
average speed means that when the grade of road improved
to the next level, average speed will be increased and vice
versa. Traffic volume has reverse effect, means that when
traffic volume is getting to raise average speed will be
decreased and vice versa. The proportion of heavy vehicle
traffic has a reverse effect in average speed of vehicles
means that when it is increased the average speed will be
decreased. Results show that artificial neural network model
can be applied for prediction of average speed with a
significant compatibility. For the further studies, it can be
suggested that researchers should be focused on the other
parameters influencing on average speed such as level of
enforcement and roadside facilities located near the roads.
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