Fractal Analysis of Empirical and Simulated Traffic Time Series

Abstract

Time series can show signs of fractal and multi-fractal behaviour. An analysis from this perspective can unearth features of time series that remain hidden for analysis with standard statistics. We analyse the multi-fractal spectra of traffic time series with the help of Multi-fractal Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (MDFA). Empirical time series of traffic flows and velocities measured by loop detectors are compared with time series gathered from traffic simulations. As a second focus, we analyse multi-fractal features of time series from different vehicle classes, i.e. passenger and transport traffic.