Citation

Chung K, Cassidy MJ. Transp. Res. Rec. 2004; 1883: 14-20.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2004, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A theory that can explain even some of the more puzzling aspects of freeway traffic flow is tested here. Some of the observations furnished to this end pertain to dynamic features of traffic that have not been previously verified with data. These include findings that (a) freeway traffic can enter a semicongested state marked by a fast-moving queue in the passing lane with unqueued flow in the shoulder lane; (b) the possible devolution of traffic to a fully congested state when vehicle speeds in the passing lane drop below those in the shoulder lane supports the contention that freeway capacity reductions can be caused by loss of driver motivation; and (c) the transition between semicongested and fully congested traffic can propagate upstream at velocities much higher than those of ordinary kinematic waves. These and other findings are in agreement with the theory, which suggests that the theory is a reasonable description of certain driver behavior.