Correlation Patterns of Highway Segment Travel Times
Understanding of correlation patterns of highway segment travel times is critical to quantifying highway path travel time reliability. However, most existing empirical observations on segment travel time correlations only focus on a small number of neighboring segments, and the general correlation patterns between multiple segments along a long highway path are yet to be investigated. This paper conducts an empirical study to analyze how travel time correlation between two arbitrary segments along a long highway changes with the distance between these two segments. The authors analyze a series of consecutive microwave detectors along an express way in Beijing, China. The travel time of a segment covered by two neighboring detectors is estimated with the speed counts at these two detectors. Pairwise correlation coefficients of all segment travel times were calculated. The authors discover a profound pattern in these pairwise correlations: the correlation magnitude in general decreases with the distance between the two corresponding segments and the decreasing trend follows a power law function. This discovery reveals a fundamental relationship that links segment travel time measurements (which are easy to obtain from existing traffic sensors) with path travel time distributions (which is difficult to measure or estimate), and thus provides an empirical basis for travel time reliability modeling.
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Supplemental Notes:
- This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABJ30 Urban Transportation Data and Information Systems.
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Corporate Authors:
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC United States 20001 -
Authors:
- Yang, Yanfang
- Qin, Yong
- Li, Xiaopeng
- Tian, Yin
- Jia, Limin
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Conference:
- Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting
- Location: Washington DC, United States
- Date: 2015-1-11 to 2015-1-15
- Date: 2015
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Features: Figures; References; Tables;
- Pagination: 16p
- Monograph Title: TRB 94th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Distance; Microwave detectors; Reliability (Statistics); Spatial analysis; Speed; Statistical analysis; Travel time
- Geographic Terms: Beijing (China)
- Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01555316
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: 15-5624
- Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
- Created Date: Feb 26 2015 10:05AM