Non-recurrent traffic congestion detection on heterogeneous urban road networks

Abstract

This paper proposes two novel methods for non-recurrent congestion (NRC) event detection on heterogeneous urban road networks based on link journey time (LJT) estimates. Heterogeneity exists on urban road networks in two main aspects: variation in link lengths and data quality. The proposed NRC detection methods are referred to as percentile-based NRC detection and space–time scan statistics (STSS) based NRC detection. Both of these methods capture the heterogeneity of an urban road network by modelling the LJTs with a lognormal distribution. Empirical analyses are conducted on London's urban road network consisting of 424 links for the 20 weekdays of October 2010. Various parameter settings are tested for both of the methods, and the results favour STSS-based NRC detection method over the percentile-based NRC detection method. Link-based analyses demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods in capturing the heterogeneity of the analysed road network.