Empirical Analysis of Traffic Sensor Data Surrounding a Bottleneck on a German Autobahn

The evolution of traffic from freely flowing to queued conditions and from queued to freely flowing conditions was studied along a 14-km section of German Autobahn 9 near Munich. Several bottlenecks were identified by a systematic examination of the excess vehicle accumulation and excess travel time (delay) that arose between measurement locations. It is shown that a bottleneck arose repeatedly downstream of an on-ramp on a busy freeway. The analysis tools used were curves of cumulative vehicle arrival number versus time and curves of cumulative time-averaged velocity versus time. The data required to construct these curves were available in archived form from inductive loop detectors embedded in the freeway. These cumulative plots were carefully and systematically transformed to produce the resolution necessary to reveal important details of the evolution of traffic flow features. These high-resolution transformed curves have made it possible to identify key time-dependent features related to the activation and deactivation of the bottleneck.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.3141/1934-10
• 
• Summary URL:
  http://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Empirical+Analysis+of+Traffic+Sensor+Data+Surrounding+a+Bottleneck+on+a+German+Autobahn&author=R.+Bertini&author=S.+Hansen&author=K.+Bogenberger&publication_year=2005
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://www.trb.org/Main/Public/Blurbs/156936.aspx
• Authors:
  • Bertini, Robert L
  • 0000-0001-5580-5293
  • Hansen, Steven
  • Bogenberger, Klaus
• Publication Date: 2005

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 97-107
• Monograph Title: Traffic Flow Theory 2005
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board
  • Issue Number: 1934
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0361-1981

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bottlenecks; Freeways; Loop detectors; Mathematical analysis; On ramps; Time dependence; Traffic flow; Traffic queuing; Traffic speed
• Geographic Terms: Munich (Germany)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I71: Traffic Theory;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01022833
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 0309094089
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Apr 15 2006 3:10PM