Freeway Incident Diversionary Behavior as a Measure of Transportation Network Resilience

Abstract

Traffic flow disruptions caused by road incidents reduce the performance of transportation networks. Under such conditions, drivers often attempt to reduce delay by diverting to alternate paths, redistributing trips to less congested routes. In the absence of route guidance information, the speed and efficiency of network recovery are most significantly influenced by driver familiarity with a network and, in particular, its daily variability. The goal of this study was to propose metrics and a general formula to relate driver diversionary behavior during incidents to assess resulting actions and conditions from the perspective of network resiliency. Another key objective of the work was to assess the applicability of routine traffic volume data collected by the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (LA DOTD) for assessing both driver adaptation and local network resiliency during incidents. The findings from the study suggest that resiliency during incident conditions is not a fixed value for a facility but varies depending on the severity of the incident, opportunities for travel diversion, and the actions of network managers.