Influence of Large Vehicles on the Speed of Expressway Traffic Flow

Large vehicles impact the quality of traffic flow. To predict the impact of large-scale vehicles on the average speed of traffic flow, vehicle speeds under different vehicle mixing rates were collected through field observations. A laser roadside traffic survey instrument with automatic vehicle type identification functionality was used to collect cross section traffic flow data. The v/C ratio, large vehicle mixing rate, and average speed of traffic were calculated for each data set. A total of 158 traffic flow data sets were captured and divided into three groups according to the v/C ratio of the expressway. The v/C ratio ranges of the three groups are v/C <= 0.35, 0.35<v/C <= 0.55, and 0.55<v/C <= 0.90. SPSS software was used to analyze the correlation between the vehicle mixing rate and the average speed under different traffic flow conditions, and a model was determined between the average speed of the vehicle flow and the large vehicle mixing rate. Analysis of the results with SPSS revealed a negative logarithmic linear relationship between the average traffic speed and the mixing rate of large vehicles. The results could also be applied to passenger cars. The models are considered as corrections of the average speed of the traffic flow after the mixing of large vehicles. When the mixing rate of large vehicles is close to zero, the forecast value of the model is the average speed of passenger cars. Furthermore, as the traffic volume of the road section increased, the influence of the mixing rate on traffic flow speed became more obvious. The adaptability of the proposed prediction model of the expressway mixing rate was verified by evaluating model predictions against actual measurements.