DEVELOPMENT OF CONGESTION CAUSAL PIE CHARTS FOR ARTERIAL ROADWAYS

Urban congestion is being increased by a rapid growth in travel demand and a limited ability to expand physical infrastructure. If transportation agencies could accurately quantify the impacts of various congestion causes, they would be able to prioritize their strategies more efficiently. The Federal Highway Administration developed a well-known congestion causal pie chart in 2004, but this development process did not have extensive access to field data. Recent advancements in both traffic measurement technologies and data-driven analysis are making it possible to quantify congestion impacts more accurately. However, an assessment of congestion causes on signalized arterials presents many challenges, due to complexity of the required data and the interaction of traffic demand and control. The objective of this study is to create congestion pie charts which demonstrate the proportion of average experienced delay components on arterial corridors. A multivariate linear regression model of observed delay is used to demonstrate contributing factors to arterial street congestion. The methodology is explained using a section of Broward Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, FL. The findings from the model demonstrate that a considerable part of arterial congestion can be attributed to travel demands and intersection signals.