Single-vehicle data of highway traffic: microscopic description of traffic phases

TL;DR

This paper analyzes single-vehicle highway traffic data to understand microscopic vehicle interactions, traffic phases, and jam dynamics, providing insights that compare real-world data with idealized simulations and clarify time-headway distributions.

Contribution

It offers a detailed microscopic analysis of traffic phases and jams, addressing open questions about time-headway distribution and comparing real data with simulations.

Findings

Identification of traffic phases including free flow, synchronized traffic, and jams.

Long-lasting wide jams characterized and analyzed.

Clarification of the time-headway distribution in traffic flow.

Abstract

We present a detailed analysis of single-vehicle data which sheds some light on the microscopic interaction of the vehicles. Besides the analysis of free flow and synchronized traffic the data sets especially provide information about wide jams which persist for a long time. The data have been collected at a location far away from ramps and in the absence of speed limits which allows a comparison with idealized traffic simulations. We also resolve some open questions concerning the time-headway distribution.