Transitions between quasi-stationary states in traffic systems: Cologne orbital motorways as an example

TL;DR

This study investigates how traffic systems transition between different operational modes, using Cologne's orbital motorways as a case, revealing seasonal patterns and dominant states through a novel network analysis approach.

Contribution

It introduces a new method to analyze transitions between quasi-stationary traffic states and identifies seasonal and dominant patterns in traffic system modes.

Findings

Seasonal dependence of traffic states

Identification of dominant traffic states with PageRank

First application of state transition networks in traffic analysis

Abstract

Traffic systems can operate in different modes. In a previous work, we identified these modes as different quasi-stationary states in the correlation structure. Here, we analyze the transitions between such quasi-stationary states, i.e., how the system changes its operational mode. In the longer run this might be helpful to forecast the time evolution of correlation patterns in traffic. We take Cologne orbital motorways as an example, we construct a state transition network for each quarter of 2015 and find a seasonal dependence for those quasi-stationary states in the traffic system. Using the PageRank algorithm, we identify and explore the dominant states which occur frequently within a moving time window of 60 days in 2015. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of this type for traffic systems.