Impact of Traffic State Transition and Oscillation on Highway Performance with Section-Based Approach

To investigate the impact of traffic state transition and oscillation on highway performance, this paper develops a section-based identification methodology to classify traffic state into stationary (FF, BN, CT, and BQ), transitional and oscillatory traffic using point measurement data. Firstly, the section-based perspective presents the asymmetry in the intensity of two different transition paths (breakdown and recovery) resulting inequality in the capacity and recovery rate (section-hysteresis). It is found that there exists decreasing tendency of transition intensity according to the number of lanes and the positive relationship between the intensity of transition and the amount of capacity loss. Moreover, accompanied by traffic oscillations, a series of capacity loss suggests the negative impact of oscillations on traffic dynamics triggering subsequent performance degradations. In addition, we observe the shrinkage of incoming flow to the queue. The findings emphasize the adverse impact of traffic state transition and guide us to settle the management strategy by providing statistical estimations for main highway performance.