Dependence of Empirical Fundamental Diagram on Spatial-Temporal Traffic Patterns Features

Abstract

It is shown that the branch of the empirical fundamental diagram for congested traffic strongly depends both on the type of the congested pattern at a freeway bottleneck and on the freeway location where the fundamental diagram is measured. Since the type of the pattern at the same bottleneck can depend on traffic demand, a qualitative form of the empirical fundamental diagram can strong depend on traffic demand also. At freeway locations where the average speed in synchronized flow is higher the branch of the fundamental diagram for congested traffic has a positive slope in the flow density plane as well the slope of the branch for free flow. In the upstream direction when the average synchronized flow speed inside the congested pattern decreases, first the slope of the branch for congested traffic decreases and then the branch can transform into the curve with a maximum. At freeway locations, where the average speed in synchronized flow further decreases the branch for congested traffic more and more tends to the line J which represents the stationary motion of the downstream front of a wide moving jam in the flow-density plane: The line J is an asymptote for the branch of congested traffic of the empirical fundamental diagrams at higher densities for those freeway locations where wide moving jams occur and propagate.