An Evaluation method of road network stability in peak hours based on Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram

Abstract

The Macroscopic Fundamental Diagrams (MFD) is a non-universal changing process over time of network traffic status, which means its shape relates to the changing network performance. Generally, the performance varies with the outflow level, leading to the fluctuation of network status under different conditions in different time periods. There is requirement to evaluate network stability especially for the peak hours. This paper aims at proposing a method to evaluate network stability through a three-dimensional variances' scatter coordinate. Three stability indicators are introduced to analyze the scatter coordinate and the calculations are illustrated. There is a real case based on data collected from Atlanta's urban network presents to verify the proposed method. Moreover, the different performance between morning and evening peak are exhibited in the real case and corresponding indexes are cross-compared to explain the otherness.