Spatio-temporal traffic queue detection for uninterrupted flows

Bumjoon Bae, Yuandong Liu, Lee D. Han and Hamparsum Bozdogan

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 2019, vol. 129, issue C, 20-34

Abstract: When traffic flow exceeds capacity because of demand fluctuations, crashes, work zones, and special events, a traffic queue is formed on a highway. Traffic queues cause potentially hazardous situations at the end of the queue where drivers unexpectedly face slowed or stopped traffic while approaching at high speed. Therefore, detecting a queue is vital for protecting it. This study presents a real-time spatio-temporal traffic queue detection algorithm that builds on traffic flow fundamentals combined with a statistical pattern recognition procedure. Using flow-density data, traffic flow phase is classified as either congested or uncongested flow in a probabilistic manner, based on Gaussian mixture models for each location in such a way that detects the traffic phase transitions. The proposed detection algorithm was applied to detect traffic queues using traffic detector data from Interstate 40 in Knoxville, Tennessee. The detection results show that the algorithm detects queues successfully by accounting for varying queueing conditions and different queue types. In addition, the proposed algorithm performed better than speed threshold methods in the literature.

Keywords: Traffic queue; Congestion detection; Gaussian mixture model; Information complexity criterion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191261518300481
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:transb:v:129:y:2019:i:c:p:20-34

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.trb.2019.09.001

Access Statistics for this article

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological is currently edited by Fred Mannering

More articles in Transportation Research Part B: Methodological from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().