Bottlenecks, Shockwave, and Off-Ramp Blockage on Freeways

Jingqiu Guo, Xinyao Chen, Yuqi Pang, Yibing Wang and Pengjun Zheng
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Jingqiu Guo: Key Laboratory of Road and Traffic Engineering of the Ministry of Education, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Xinyao Chen: Zhejiang University Urban-Rural Planning & Design Institute, Hangzhou 310000, China
Yuqi Pang: Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Communications Planning, Design & Research, Hangzhou 310006, China
Yibing Wang: Institute of Intelligent Transportation Systems, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Pengjun Zheng: Faculty of Maritime and Transportation, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 18, 1-23

Abstract: Freeway congestion may spill back for several kilometers, blocking a number of on/off-ramps upstream. As a consequence, flows at the off-ramps may be substantially reduced, and vehicles bound for the off-ramps are trapped in the mainstream congestion, causing intensified spillback of congestion that blocks even more off-ramps further upstream. Such off-ramp blockage is readily understood and its impact is empirically recognized, but there is a lack of analysis to provide more insights. In this paper, some flow conditions for the activation of bottlenecks and congestion propagation are first established, and the mechanism of the off-ramp blockage is theoretically explored. Macroscopic and microscopic simulations are conducted to demonstrate the analytical results, and some general relations between the total demand, total inflow, total off-ramp outflow, and the number of vehicles within a freeway system are examined.

Keywords: freeway networks; bottleneck activation; congestion propagation; off-ramp blockage; macroscopic fundamental diagram; macroscopic and microscopic simulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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