Author/Authors :
Mamdoohi Amir Reza نويسنده Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran , Saffarzadeh Mahmoud نويسنده Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering - Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran , Shojaat Siavash نويسنده Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering - Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran
Abstract :
Existence of capacity drop phenomenon, as the difference between pre-queue and queue discharge flow rates, has been
one of the controversial concepts of traffic engineering. Several researches have focused on capacity drop existence
and also its estimation issues. This paper aims to estimate capacity drop based not only on a comparison between
breakdown and queue discharge flow rates, but also on the estimation of the capacity distribution function before
and after breakdown. In the empirical case, speed and flow rate data are collected in a section of Iran’s most crowded
freeway for four months, based on which the threshold speed as the boundary between congested and non-congested
flow is determined, and breakdown flow rates and their subsequent queue discharge flows are detected. Paired t-test
between pre-queue and queue discharge flow rates is conducted to find the mean difference. Also, the distribution
function of capacity under non-congested and congested flow is estimated using maximum likelihood and product
limit methods. Based on the 11,600-record data set, it was observed that end results of both methods are consistent,
revealing roughly five percent drop in capacity for the section under investigation.