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Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the freeway breakdown mechanism and capacity inventory at four bottlenecks on the Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, freeway system. Bottleneck flow was considered for two capacity regimes: a free-flow capacity regime, defined by the pre-breakdown flow (PBDF), and a congested-flow capacity regime, defined by the queue discharge flow (QDF). More than 1,070 breakdowns were used in the analysis. The study focused on the change in the traffic flow after a breakdown, not only across different sites but from one breakdown to another at the same site. The breakdown behavior of individual lanes was also considered. Furthermore, the correlation between the QDF and the PBDF was also investigated. Some breakdowns resulted in a bottleneck flow increase for the entire section, rather than a flow drop. Therefore, breakdowns were categorized into two types: mature breakdowns and immature breakdowns. The concepts of the flow increase phenomenon, breakdown maturity, and capacity inventory were introduced and discussed.

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Breakdown Maturity Phenomenon at Wisconsin Freeway Bottlenecks

Abstract

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