Quality of information-aware real-time traffic flow analysis and reporting

In this paper we present a framework for Quality of Information (QoI)-aware networking. QoI quantifies how useful a piece of information is for a given query or application. Herein, we present a general QoI model, as well as a specific example instantiation that carries throughout the rest of the paper. In this model, we focus on the tradeoffs between precision and accuracy. As a motivating example, we look at traffic video analysis. We present simple algorithms for deriving various traffic metrics from video, such as vehicle count and average speed. We implement these algorithms both on a desktop workstation and less-capable mobile device. We then show how QoI-awareness enables end devices to make intelligent decisions about how to process queries and form responses, such that huge bandwidth savings are realized.