Study on the Distribution of the Suburban Expressway Hourly Traffic Volume and Modification of the Design Hourly Volume under the Background of the Tourism Economy—Analysis on Design Factors of Normalized Congestion in Suburban Expressway

Fangchen Ma, Jinliang Xu (), Chao Gao and Yufeng Bi
Additional contact information
Fangchen Ma: College of Highway, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710064, China
Jinliang Xu: College of Highway, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710064, China
Chao Gao: College of Highway, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710064, China
Yufeng Bi: Shandong Provincial Communication Planning and Design Institute Group Co. Ltd., SHANDONG HI-SPEED Group, Jinan 250000, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 17, 1-15

Abstract: An unreasonable design hourly volume (DHV) greatly impacts road facility construction costs and traffic efficiency. With the rapid rise in the tourism economy and widespread emergence of holiday travel characteristics in China, DHV applicability for suburban expressways requires verification. This study collected annual traffic volume data over 8760 h along Xi’an Ring Expressway from 2017 to 2019. Traffic demand distribution patterns throughout the year and peak hours were analyzed on the basis of the descending order of the obtained hourly traffic volume (HV) and factor data. HV distribution characteristics, 30th highest hourly volume (30 HV) typicality, and DHV factor applicability were investigated. Due to travel characteristics under the background of the tourism economy, the peak HV distribution exhibits polarization characteristics. The recommended value of the design hour traffic factor in the specification corresponded to a number of hours greater than 200, with the 30 HV factor under the background of the tourism economy being 25% higher than the recommended value. Considering the tourism economy, the high level of traffic operation time increased significantly, and the characteristics of a sharp decline in the peak HV disappeared. The 30 HV factor no longer exhibited traditional characteristics. The design causes of traffic congestion are identified herein.

Keywords: sustainable transportation; traffic engineering; DHV; holiday traffic polarization; hourly volume; expressway design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/17/10775/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/17/10775/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:17:p:10775-:d:901037

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().