Influence of weather conditions on the traffic flow parameters on Pešter plateau

Abstract

In the middle of the last century, research began on the influence of weather conditions on the parameters of traffic flow. Due to the lack of these researches in our country, the aim of this paper was to perform a detailed analysis of the impact of snowfall on the volume and speed in the traffic flow on the sections of state road IB order on the Peshter plateau. For the needs of the research, three traffic sections were selected, which are suitable for the realization of this analysis due to their position, characteristics of traffic flows and geometric and operational features. The research was performed by comparing the flow and velocities between the periods with and without intense snowfall. The obtained results show that intense snowfall reduces traffic volume by more than 40% and average speeds in the range of 9 - 18% depending on the analyzed section, on a total sample of 123,014 vehicles, which is a statistically significant sample size. When it comes to velocity dispersion, no significant change between the two reference periods was observed on either of the observed sections.