Analysis of moving bottlenecks considering a triangular fundamental diagram

Abstract

Abstract A significant number of research efforts have studied and analyzed the case in which a vehicle is moving slower than the traffic stream. This phenomenon, known as a moving bottleneck, results in a disruption of traffic flow and may significantly impact the traffic stream behavior upstream, downstream and abreast the slow moving vehicle. In this paper, a macroscopic approach for modeling moving bottlenecks is developed using microscopically derived data considering a triangular fundamental diagram. The passing flow rates of different moving bottleneck scenarios are determined using a previously developed microscopic model based on simulated data derived from the INTEGRATION software. Using the simulation results, an explicit expression of the bottleneck diagram, a flow-density relationship that defines the phenomenon macroscopically is proposed and the behavior of the traffic stream downstream and abreast the moving obstruction is depicted. It is demonstrated that the behavior of the traffic stream downstream of the slow vehicle as well as the acceleration behavior while passing is governed by the demand level. Such a result is coherent and consistent, to a significant extent, with two decades of research related to modeling moving bottlenecks and constitutes a potential feasible and more detailed description of the phenomenon in the case of a triangular fundamental diagram. Finally, it is noteworthy that the research subject of this paper could be considered as a first step in developing a numerical and practitioner-friendly framework for the analysis of moving bottlenecks that does not involve approaching the problem from its theoretical perspective.