Reducing the Non-Recurrent Freeway Congestion with Detour Operations: Case Study in Florida

To alleviate the impacts of freeway incidents and improve the traffic conditions on the entire transportation network, operational systems of discrete facilities need to be coordinated on a corridor. As such, this study focuses on a new traffic diversion methodology for a better utilization of the available traffic capacity of the corridor. The methodology aims to divert incident-induced freeway congestion to the adjacent arterials using the VISSIM microsimulation tool, which can simulate a freeway incident and measure the performance of detour operations. Within the study, an experiment with a 2³ full factorial central composite design is utilized in order to define the optimum diversion rate in different demand levels. Experimental results are also modeled with the hierarchical multilevel regression model. Findings indicate that the resultant regression equation can successfully predict the corridor delay with 7 (s/veh) error and 83.85% accuracy. Traffic agencies can employ the proposed hierarchical model to decide whether or not a detour should be implemented. Furthermore, with the estimate of the incident duration and the current V/C ratio on the freeway, the diversion rate that results in a minimum corridor delay can be identified.