Capacity Reductions at Incidents Sites on Motorways

 

 

Victor Knoop*, Serge Hoogendoorn** and Koen Adams***

*Transport and Planning
TRAIL Research School
Delft University of Technology
Stevinweg 1, 2628 CN Delft, the Netherlands
T: +31152781723
F: +31152873179
E: v.l.knoop@tudelft.nl

**Transport and Planning
TRAIL Research School
Delft University of Technology
Stevinweg 1, 2628 CN Delft, the Netherlands
T: +31152785475
F: +31152873179
E: s.p.hoogendoorn@tudelft.nl

***Transport and Planning
TRAIL Research School
Delft University of Technology
Groen van Prinsterersingel 43b, 2805 TD Gouda, the Netherlands
T: +31182555030
F: +31182555039
E: k.adams@arane.nl

Full text pdf

 

Abstract

 

Incidents cause a large part of the delays in road networks. This is caused by a decrease of the capacity at the incident site. A detailed knowledge of the queue discharge rate can improve for instance the traffic prediction and thereby improve delay information or routing advice. Therefore, this study determines the queue discharge rate for many incident locations during an incident situation and these are compared with the queue discharge rate at the same location in normal conditions. Ninety incidents meet the requirements to apply the proposed methodology. It is found in case a driving lane is blocked, the queue discharge rate for each available lane is reduced by 50%. In case the driving lanes are open but there is a distraction of an incident at the emergency lane or on the roadway for the opposite direction, the queue discharge rate is reduced by 30%.

 

Keywords: Incidents; Accidents; Road capacity