Assessing the Influence of Adverse Weather on Traffic Flow Characteristics Using a Driving Simulator and VISSIM

Chen Chen, Xiaohua Zhao, Hao Liu, Guichao Ren, Yunlong Zhang and Xiaoming Liu
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Chen Chen: Beijing Key Laboratory of Traffic Engineering, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China
Xiaohua Zhao: Beijing Key Laboratory of Traffic Engineering, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China
Hao Liu: Beijing Transportation Information, Beijing 100161, China
Guichao Ren: Beijing Key Laboratory of Traffic Engineering, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China
Yunlong Zhang: Zachry Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Xiaoming Liu: Beijing Key Laboratory of Traffic Engineering, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 3, 1-16

Abstract: The occurrence of adverse weather exacerbates traffic flow conditions, often leading to severe traffic congestions. Many studies have been conducted based on field-collected data to obtain the effects of weather on traffic flow characteristics. However, there is a limitation for filed data-based studies, in that weather conditions and traffic conditions are both noncontrollable and nonrepeatable, making it difficult to comprehensively assess the influence of weather conditions, especially the rare extreme weather conditions, on traffic flow characteristics. This paper proposes to assess these effects with the combination of driving simulator and traffic simulation. A driving simulator can collect driving behavior by conducting weather-related driving simulation experiments, while a microscopic traffic simulation program can evaluate the changes in traffic flow characteristics by inputting driving behavior parameters coming from the driving simulator. The proposed method can overcome the limitation of the field data-based approach. In this paper, the structure of the assessment platform is introduced at first. Then a verification experiment is conducted to measure the influences of adverse weather conditions on traffic flow characteristics. The verification experiment results show that the influences of adverse weather on traffic flow characteristics have consistent tendencies with outcomes from previous research and demonstrate that the method is practicable for the analysis of the influence of weather on traffic flow characteristics. This paper provides a practical way to analyze the influence of weather on traffic flow from driving behavior’s point of view.

Keywords: adverse weather; driving simulator; traffic simulation; traffic flow characteristics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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