Abstract
Traffic state estimation provides valuable information for travelers and decision makers. To implement an estimation method, one needs to predetermine the initial state and model parameters. This paper presents a new method to estimate model parameters and initial states for Newellâ??s simplified kinematic wave model based on heterogeneous data sources. Different from existing studies, the proposed method is a simultaneous framework which estimates both parameter and traffic state at the same step. The problem is formulated in a least square optimization framework which is solved using the Gauss-Newton method. The authors verified the estimation method using Next Generation Simulation (NGSIM) (USDOT, 2008) data and analyzed the impact of market penetration rate. The estimation result is consistent with observation.