Travel Time Estimation for Recurrent Jammed Flow on Shanghai North-South Expressway

The conventional point-detector based method for travel time estimation does not consider the impact of future downstream traffic conditions and may deviate significantly from real travel times during congestion. Though many newly arising algorithms have been developed, it is difficult for them to be applied in real situation. This paper proposes a novel and easy-to-implement method of travel time estimation using effective capacity at the bottlenecks of expressway based on actual data during recurrent congestion periods. Then the method is applied to Shanghai North-south expressway in the microscopic simulation program VISSIM. The experiment results show the accuracy is satisfying in 5-minute intervals.