POISSON AND TRAFFIC: USE OF POISSON DISTRIBUTION IN HIGHWAY TRAFFIC

THE APPLICATION OF THE POISSON DISTRIBUTION TO TRAFFIC PROBLEMS IS REVIEWED. APPENDICES PRESENT THE DERIVATION OF THE POISSON DISTRIBUTION STARTING FROM THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS OF PERMUTATIONS AND COMBINATIONS. THE NATURE OF POISSON DISTRIBUTION IS DISCUSSED. EXAMPLES ARE GIVEN OF POISSON DISTRIBUTIONS. IN THE EXAMPLES PRESENTED IT WAS POSTULATED THAT A POISSON DISTRIBUTION HAVING A CERTAIN PARAMETER WHOSE VALUE HAS BEEN COMPUTED FROM THE OBSERVED DATA DESCRIBES THE POPULATION THAT HAS BEEN SAMPLED. THE CHI SQUARE TEST IS USED AS A STATISTICAL TEST OF SIGNIFICANCE TO CHECK THE INFERENCE THAT THE POSTAULATED THEORETICAL (POISSON) DISTRIBUTION IS IN FACT THE TRUE POPULATION DISTRIBUTION. THE TECHNIQUE OF PERFORMING THE CHI SQUARE SIGNIFICANCE TEST IS ILLUSTRATED. THE FOLLOWING TRAFFIC APPLICATIONS OF THE POISSON DISTRIBUTION ARE DERIVED: (1) ANALYSIS OF ARRIVAL RATES AT A GIVEN POINT, (2) STUDIES OF VEHICLE SPACING (GAPS), (3) DETERMINATION OF THE PROBABILITY OF FINDING A VACANT PARKING SPACE, (4) STUDIES OF CERTAIN ACCIDENTS, AND (5) DESIGN OF LEFT-TURN POCKETS. EXAMPLES ARE GIVEN OF THE USE OF THE CUMULATIVE AND MULTIPLE POISSON DISTRIBUTION. THE PROCEDURE IS REVIEWED FOR COMPUTING PROBABILITIES FROM THE POISSON DISTRIBUTION.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • pp 1-58, 3 FIG, 1 TAB, 8 APP
• Corporate Authors:

  Eno Foundation for Highway Traffic Control

  1250 I Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20005
• Authors:
  • Gerlough, D L
• Publication Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Analysis; Chi square test; Distributions (Statistics); Gap acceptance; Highway traffic; Parking; Poisson ratio; Probability theory; Significance (Statistics); Spacing; Statistical analysis; Traffic; Traffic crashes; Traffic flow
• Uncontrolled Terms: Traffic analysis
• Old TRIS Terms: Poissons ratio; Significance; Vehicular traffic
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00227136
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 13 2004 6:47PM