Bottleneck Analysis for Urban Road Networks

  • contact:

    Prof. Peter Vortisch

    Lea Fuchs, M.Sc.

    Josephine Grau, M.Sc.

  • funding:

    Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen (BASt)

  • partner:

    iTUBS - Innovationsgesellschaft Technische Universität Braunschweig mbH

    BSV - Büro für Stadt- und Verkehrsplanung Dr.-Ing. Reinhold Baier GmbH

  • start:

    2021

  • end:

    2023

Problem Statement

Especially during rush hour, intersections in many cities are oversaturated due to high traffic demand, which leads to backlogs, time losses and increased emissions. For this reason, a procedure will be developed that locates and identifies bottlenecks in the inner-city main road network by using generally accessible FCD (Floating Car Data).

Objective

The aim of the project is to provide two FCD-based procedures:

  1. an alternative procedure (according to the HBS) to determine average travel speeds for the assessment of the quality of service of network sections on main roads.
  2. a procedure to identify bottlenecks related to sections or intersections for a deficiency analysis in inner-city main road networks.
Methods

Representative network sections will be selected for the empirical investigation. The core of the project is the processing and analysis of FCD to determine travel times. Travel times on network sections will be recorded as reference variables using license plate recognition systems. On the same network sections, travel times are determined from FCD for the same period and compared to the empirical data. The comparison is extended to travel times from microscopic traffic flow models and to calculation methods described in the HBS (2015).

In addition to the overall project management, the IfV is responsible for the simulation models and the empirical surveys.