Capacity Drop on Freeways: Traffic Dynamics, Theory and Modeling

Abstract

Earlier studies on the traffic flow on freeways reveal that queue discharge rate cannot reach as high as the free-flow capacity. This important phenomenon is called the “Capacity drop”, which indicates that the potential freeway capacity cannot be fully utilized when discharging traffic jams. Even though a majority of empirical and analytical research has already been conducted to understand the capacity drop, several relevant challenges still need to be addressed. Those challenges include (1) characterizing more empirical features of the capacity drop, (2) incorporating the capacity drop into macroscopic models, (3) revealing mechanism related to driver behaviors behind the capacity drop and incorporating the mechanism into microscopic models. This thesis fills the research gap.