Studying perturbations and wave propagations by lane closures on traffic characteristics based on a dynamic approach

摘要

Lane closures cause perturbations and wave propagations on traffic characteristics of freeways and consequently affect traffic flow. To conduct a dynamic analysis regarding the effects of lane closures on traffic characteristics, this study aimed to examine the effects of lane closures as multi-static bottlenecks on the evolution and wave propagation of uniform traffic flow in a four-lane divided freeway based on the field study and macroscopic traffic flow model. One-lane closure is a work zone and two-lane closure occurs when the second lane near the one-lane closure is blocked due to an incident caused by a lane change. In addition, the classical Lighthill-Whitham-Richards (LWR) model was combined with the non-linear Greenshield's speed-density relation to expand the models for characterizing the behavior of shockwaves under lane closures. Thus, based on numerical procedures regarding the Lax-Friedrichs scheme, the results indicated that wave propagations by two-lane closure have significant effects on the perturbations of traffic flow density which are 1.5 times as much as the wave propagations in one-lane closure. Moreover, one-lane closure reduced the capacity by 21% although the two-lane closure caused a 45% decrease in the capacity. A comparison between expanded LVVR rho and LVVRu. models with the LWR model demonstrated that expanded models under two-lane closure and one-lane closure improved LWR model for the congested condition, and between uncongested and congested traffic condition 15.61% and 39%, respectively. Therefore, expanded models revealed a better performance as a dynamic approach to analyze the behavior of wave propagations in jam traffic conditions compared to LWR model under lane closures. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.