Field Experiment to Identify Potentials of Applying Bluetooth Technology to Collect Passenger Vehicle Crossing Times at the U.S.-Mexico Border (TTI-2009-6)

The Texas Transportation Institute in collaboration with Turnpike Global investigated the feasibility of using Bluetooth technology to gather more accurate, scientifically based border crossing times of passenger vehicles at the U.S.-Mexico border. At three points of entry in the El Paso, Texas, region, a Bluetooth reader on each side of the U.S.-Mexico border gathered data from drivers' and passengers' Bluetooth-enabled devices to determine border crossing times. Researchers counted vehicles and performed an intercept survey to determine how many motorists had Bluetooth-capable mobile devices. The study confirmed that Bluetooth technology could be used to measure U.S.-Mexico border crossing times. An advantage of using this technology is that it does not require any special software to run on motorists' devices. The disadvantages of using this technology are that the physical geometry and queues at a crossing may affect the number of readers that can be installed and that Bluetooth technology requires complex algorithms to determine average crossing times.