Visualization Tools For Traffic Bottleneck Analysis

Traffic bottlenecks are a major source of highway user delay. Therefore, identifying bottlenecks and estimating their impacts is critical for making effective and efficient congestion management decisions. While traditional automated traffic recorders (ATR) provide valuable measurements of traffic flow characteristics, their network coverage is inherently limited. However, increased percentages of vehicles and travelers equipped with global positioning systems (GPS) have enabled transportation analysts to collect continuous and wide spread speed and travel time information from probe vehicles, thus allowing for comprehensive monitoring and analysis of the highway network. This paper presents the development and sample application of novel online bottleneck analysis and visualization tool to assist transportation professionals in identifying bottlenecks, and understanding their impacts using innovative data visualizations based on vehicle probe data analysis. The interactive visualizations include 1) maps illustrating the segments impacted by a given bottleneck(s), 2) timelines displaying the evolution of congestion over one or multiple days, as well as incidents occurring during congestion, 3) charts showing the spatial and temporal impacts of a given bottleneck, and 4) tables summarizing the impacts and rankings of each bottleneck. These visualizations can be used to provide both planning and operational congestion management decision support.