Quantifying the Impact of Weather Events on Travel Time and Reliability

It is of practical significance to understand the specific impact of weather events on the operating condition of the surface transportation system so that proactive and reactive strategies can be quickly implemented by transportation agencies to minimize the negativity resulted from adverse weather...

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Main Authors: Xu Zhang, Mei Chen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2019-01-01
Series:Journal of Advanced Transportation
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2019/8203081
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author Xu Zhang
Mei Chen
author_facet Xu Zhang
Mei Chen
author_sort Xu Zhang
collection DOAJ
description It is of practical significance to understand the specific impact of weather events on the operating condition of the surface transportation system so that proactive and reactive strategies can be quickly implemented by transportation agencies to minimize the negativity resulted from adverse weather events. Many studies have been conducted on quantifying such effects yet suffer from limitations such as subjectively defining a time window under uncongested conditions and not being able to account for the severe impact from weather events which result in travel time unreliability. To overcome those shortcomings in existing literature, an integrated data mining framework based on decision tree and quantile regression techniques is developed in this study. The results demonstrate that the approach is effective in characterizing time periods with different traffic characteristics and quantifying the impact of rain and snow events on both congestion and reliability aspects of the transportation system. It is observed that snow events impose more significant impact on travel times than that from rain events. In addition, the impact from weather events is even more severe on travel time reliability than average delay. The impact magnitude is directly related to the level of recurrent congestion under study. Other insights with regard to the capability of quantile regression and future improvement on the methodological design are also offered.
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publishDate 2019-01-01
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spelling doaj-art-75b32c1332d043048bb2248a1e1724bc2025-08-20T03:35:32ZengWileyJournal of Advanced Transportation0197-67292042-31952019-01-01201910.1155/2019/82030818203081Quantifying the Impact of Weather Events on Travel Time and ReliabilityXu Zhang0Mei Chen1Kentucky Transportation Center, University of Kentucky, 266 Raymond Bldg, Lexington, KY 40506-0281, USADepartment of Civil Engineering, University of Kentucky, 267 Raymond Bldg, Lexington, KY 40506-0281, USAIt is of practical significance to understand the specific impact of weather events on the operating condition of the surface transportation system so that proactive and reactive strategies can be quickly implemented by transportation agencies to minimize the negativity resulted from adverse weather events. Many studies have been conducted on quantifying such effects yet suffer from limitations such as subjectively defining a time window under uncongested conditions and not being able to account for the severe impact from weather events which result in travel time unreliability. To overcome those shortcomings in existing literature, an integrated data mining framework based on decision tree and quantile regression techniques is developed in this study. The results demonstrate that the approach is effective in characterizing time periods with different traffic characteristics and quantifying the impact of rain and snow events on both congestion and reliability aspects of the transportation system. It is observed that snow events impose more significant impact on travel times than that from rain events. In addition, the impact from weather events is even more severe on travel time reliability than average delay. The impact magnitude is directly related to the level of recurrent congestion under study. Other insights with regard to the capability of quantile regression and future improvement on the methodological design are also offered.http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2019/8203081
spellingShingle Xu Zhang
Mei Chen
Quantifying the Impact of Weather Events on Travel Time and Reliability
Journal of Advanced Transportation
title Quantifying the Impact of Weather Events on Travel Time and Reliability
title_full Quantifying the Impact of Weather Events on Travel Time and Reliability
title_fullStr Quantifying the Impact of Weather Events on Travel Time and Reliability
title_full_unstemmed Quantifying the Impact of Weather Events on Travel Time and Reliability
title_short Quantifying the Impact of Weather Events on Travel Time and Reliability
title_sort quantifying the impact of weather events on travel time and reliability
url http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2019/8203081
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AT meichen quantifyingtheimpactofweathereventsontraveltimeandreliability