Abstract
PURPOSES : The density in uninterrupted traffic flow facilities plays an important role in representing the current status of traffic flow. For example, the density is used for the primary measures of effectiveness in the capacity analysis for freeway facilities. Therefore, the estimation of density has been a long and tough task for traffic engineers for a long time. This study was initiated to evaluate the performance of density values that were estimated using VDS data and two traditional methods, including a method using traffic flow theory and another method using occupancy by comparing the density values estimated using vehicular trajectory data generated from a radar detector. METHODS : In this study, a radar detector which can generate very accurate vehicular trajectory within the range of 250 m on the Joongbu expressway near to Dongseoul tollgate, where two VDS were already installed. The first task was to estimate densities using different data and methods. Thus, the density values were estimated using two traditional methods and the VDS data on the Joongbu expressway. The density values were compared with those estimated using the vehicular trajectory data in order to evaluate the quality of density estimation. Then, the relationship between the space mean speed and density were drawn using two sets of densities and speeds based on the VDS data and one set of those using the radar detector data. CONCLUSIONS : As a result, the three sets of density showed minor differences when the density values were under 20 vehicles per km per lane. However, as the density values become greater than 20 vehicles per km per lane, the three methods showed a significant difference among on another. The density using the vehicular trajectory data showed the lowest values in general. Based on the in-depth study, it was found out that the space mean speed plays a critical role in the calculation of density. The speed estimated from the VDS data was higher than that from the radar detector. In order to validate the difference in the speed data, the traffic flow models using the relationships between the space mean speed and the density were carefully examined in this study. Conclusively, the traffic flow models generated using the radar data seems to be more realistic.
