Spatial–temporal differences in operational performance of urban trunk roads based on TPI data: The case of Qingdao

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to classify and analyze the traffic performance characteristics of urban trunk roads. It can help travelers effectively avoid peak hours and crowded routes, and traffic managers formulate some refined management and control on roads. This paper extracts the operating characteristics of the trunk roads on macro level by analyzing the Traffic Performance Index (TPI) data. The trunk roads are divided into three types using the agglomerative hierarchical clustering algorithm. According to the research of the spatial–temporal principles and differences of various types in traffic performance, the links with frequent traffic jams are identified, and the mechanism of the different traffic conditions is illustrated. It can be concluded that the trunk road is good conditions in most cases. On weekdays, there are two obvious peak times every day. On weekends, TPI data shows that there is no obvious peak time, and the overall road traffic conditions on weekends are better than those on weekdays. In addition, there are significant differences in the change trajectory of the TPI data and spatial distribution of various types of trunk roads. The roads with frequent traffic jams mainly come from the first and third type.