Impact of Adverse Weather on Travel Time Variability of Freeway Corridors

Over the last two decades travel time reliability has become an important aspect of transportation system performance. One group of factors affecting travel time variability is adverse weather, such as rain, snow, ice, fog, and storm. Empirical investigation on the basis of a large database of travel times on various freeways and one year weather data shows that adverse weather not only increase average travel time, but also clearly influences travel time variability of freeway corridors. On average, adverse weather results in twice the travel time variability compared with that under normal weather conditions. It is also found that rain has little or no effect on travel time variability below a certain critical inflow, but progressively impacts on travel time variability above it. In general, adverse weather conditions make travel time less reliable. This might imply that different traffic control strategies and applications should be considered under different weather conditions.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Tu, Huizhao
  • van Lint, Hans W C
  • van Zuylen, Henk J
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 86th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2007-1-21 to 2007-1-25
• Date: 2007

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: CD-ROM
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 15p
• Monograph Title: TRB 86th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers CD-ROM

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Corridors; Fog; Highway corridors; Information management; Rainfall; Snow and ice control; Storms; Traffic control; Transportation system management; Travel time; Weather conditions
• Uncontrolled Terms: Travel time variability
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01043562
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 07-1642
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Mar 6 2007 2:40PM