Travel Behavior

This paper presents a new modeling approach in which the WATSim simulation model is interfaced with dynamic traffic assignment algorithms in order to simulate vehicles with route guidance/information systems. This enhanced model can generate origin-destination and path matrices from observed turning movement counts. It also provides comprehensive statistical, graphical and animation outputs of the vehicle movements. The model was applied to the downtown San Francisco Embarcadero network and is shown to be useful in evaluating the effectiveness of Advanced Traffic Management and Information...

Speed-flow relationships have been established for different free-flow speeds on urban freeways. However, there have been few research efforts relating real-time traffic flow parameters and weather conditions for different levels of heavy vehicle traffic. This study aims at establishing relationships between speed and volume in freeway sections using Remote Traffic Microwave Sensor (RTMS) data as a function of weather conditions. Historical weather and RTMS detector data (i.e., volume and speed) from two highway corridors in the Istanbul metropolitan area are used for this purpose....

This report assesses the impacts of a prototype of Dynamic Speed Harmonization (SPD-HARM) with Queue Warning (Q-WARN), which are two component applications of the Intelligent Network Flow Optimization (INFLO) bundle. The assessment is based on an extensive analysis of the Prototype using a Vissim simulation model for the US 101 freeway corridor in San Mateo, CA as well as an evaluation of a small-scale demonstration that was conducted in Seattle, WA. Results from the simulation analysis found that the Prototype significantly reduces the magnitudes of the speed drops (shock waves) between...

In this paper, the authors investigate the relationship between traffic states on freeways and collision frequency. The authors first defined four traffic phases for road sections: free flow (FF), back of queue (BQ), bottleneck front (BN) and congestion (CT). Secondly, by integrating freeway collision data and traffic data from the California PeMS database, over a three year period the authors obtained the collision frequency for each traffic phase and compared for a 32 mile section of the I-880 freeway. The results show that collision frequencies in BN, BQ, and CT phase are approximately...