The influence of adverse weather conditions on the probability of congestion on Dutch motorways

The influence of adverse weather conditions on the probability of congestion on Dutch motorways

Van Stralen, W.
Calvert, S.C.
Molin, E.J.E.

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Transport & Planning

2014-02-12

Weather conditions are widely acknowledged to contribute to the occurrence of congestion on motorway traffic by influencing both traffic supply and traffic demand. However, to the best of our knowledge this is the first paper that explicitly integrates supply and demand effects in predicting the influence of adverse weather conditions on congestion. Traffic demand is examined by conducting a stated adaptation experiment, in which changes in travel choices are observed under adverse weather scenarios. Based on these choices, a Panel Mixed Logit model is estimated. Supply effects are taking into account by examining the influence of precipitation on motorway capacity. Based on the Product Limit Method, capacity distribution functions are estimated for dry weather, light rain and heavy rain. The results show that rainfall leads to a significant increase in the probability of traffic breakdown at bottleneck locations. Remarkably it is predicted that probability of a breakdown is higher in light rain (86.7%) than in heavy rain (77,4%) conditions, which is the result of the increased traffic demand in light rain conditions. Based on the results presented in this paper, it is recommended to Always incorporate both supply and demand effects in the predictions of motorway breakdown probabilities due to adverse weather conditions.

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:e6e06e3a-3996-413f-a104-cc01cca9e324

Transportation Research Board

93rd Annual Meeting Transportation Research Board, Washington, USA, 12-16 January 2014; Authors version

Institutional Repository

conference paper

(c) 2014 The Author(s)