An Attempt to Characterize Traffic in Metropolitan Areas

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Abstract
An attempt has been made to explore the differences and the similarities in traffic characteristics among various metropolitan areas using a large observational data base. The results show that speed distribution functions, including the percent of time stopped and average speed are traffic attributes that are useful in characterizing traffic on various roadways. In terms of the average speed and the percent of time stopped the character of the traffic in several metropolitan areas has been compared and found to be different, although the levels of acceleration used by drivers are similar. Relations appear to exist between the average speed and a number of other traffic variables, such as acceleration noise, coefficient of variation of speed, and stop time which are independent of the area studied. Therefore, among all the mentioned variables average speed is particularly useful in measuring the “quality” of traffic in different areas on various roadway types. Based on information on average speeds, the extent to which “traffic quality” might affect fuel consumption in different metropolitan areas has been estimated.

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