EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION OF TIME-DEPENDENT ACCUMULATION
PREDICTIONS IN CONGESTED TRAFFIC

Karen R. Smilowitz and Carlos F. Daganzo

Department of Civil Engineering and
Institute of Transportation Studies
University of California, Berkeley CA 94720

(November 1, 1999)

ABSTRACT

This paper shows, with experimental traffic data from a 4-mile long congested road, that traffic delays and vehicle accumulations between any two generic observers located inside the road section can be predicted quite accurately from the traffic counts measured at the extremes of the section. Predictions can be made with a streamlined version of the kinematic wave theory that does not rely on ambiguous traffic stream characteristics such as "density". The predictions were found to not require re-calibration on the day of the experiment, and to work well despite what appeared to be location-specific driver behavior.

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Last update 11/30/99