Application of Real-Time Automated Traffic Incident Response Plan Management System: A Web Structure for the Regional Highway Network in China

Abstract

Traffic incidents, caused by various factors, may lead to heavy traffic delay and be harmful to traffic capacity of downstream sections. Traffic incident management (TIM) systems have been developed widely to respond to traffic incidents intelligently and reduce the losses. Traffic incident response plans, as an important component of TIM, can effectively guide responders as to what and how to do in traffic incidents. In the paper, a real-time automated traffic incident response plan management system was developed, which could generate and manage traffic incident response plans timely and automatically. A web application structure and a physical structure were designed to implement and show these functions. A standard framework of data storage was also developed to save information about traffic incidents and generated response plans. Furthermore, a conformation survey and case-based reasoning (CBR) were introduced to identify traffic incident and generate traffic incident response plans automatically, respectively. Twentythree traffic crash-related incidents were selected and three indicators were used to measure the system performance. Results showed that 20 of 23 cases could be retrieved effectively and accurately. The system is practicable to generate traffic incident response plans and has been implemented in China.

Automated Approach for Generating and Evaluating Traffic Incident Response Plans

“…In another study, a real-time management system for traffic incident response plans has been developed in [4] in order to automatically and timely generate and manage traffic incident response plans. Three indicators were used to measure the system performance:…”

“…Generally, a traffic incident response plan can be defined as a preprepared artificial document containing some guidance and instructions for responders and traffic network actors in order to make a decision rapidly, accurately, and orderly during incident response [4].…”

Research on Characteristics and Trends of Traffic Flow Based on Mixed Velocity Method and Background Difference Method

“…Research on highway maintenance work areas has been done since ancient times. In 1994, Niskanen conducted a questionnaire survey of 207 maintenance workers in nine different units to research the safety and organizational management of highway maintenance operations, personal factors, and special environment, which found that on-site organization and management, staff judgment and attention had a significant impact on the safety of maintenance operations [2]; in 1996, Dixon et al used metric counters and classifiers in North Carolina Collecting traffic data from 24 freeway working areas in China; it was first proposed to use the speed-flow curve to define its capacity value [3]; In 2014, Ma et al developed a traffic accident response system to solve traffic safety problems in response to traffic delays in downstream sections [4]; in 2014, Liang et al established a cellular automata model of the off-ramp area by analyzing the car's following and lane changing behavior to evaluate the safety of the expressway work area [5]; in 2014, Ma et al proposed an adaptive speed control method based on ITS in the working area of the expressway in order to reasonably control the speed of vehicles in the working area of the expressway and verify its effectiveness [6]; in 2015, Xie et al assessed the quality of maintenance of highway safety facilities and converted the assessment scores of different safety facilities into total maintenance quality measurement; the result can reveal the overall facility maintenance quality of highway sections. It can be seen that the current research on highway maintenance safety has mostly focused on the forms and characteristics of maintenance safety accidents, the methods of traffic organization in maintenance work areas, the layout of maintenance work areas, and the analysis of traffic accidents in work areas [7]; in 2016, Waleczek et al discussed the impact of reversible lane systems in maintenance work areas on traffic flow and road safety, and the results showed that similar to other highway work areas, the accident rate increased with different road works [8]; In 2016, Chen et al used short-term traffic flow prediction methods to accurately predict the impact of traffic flow trends and mixed speeds on traffic flow [9]; in 2017, Li and Dong comprehensively analyzed the spatial characteristics of the merger decision and implementation of the workspace and found that the driver merger decision will be affected by the surrounding vehicle state and its own location [10]; in 2018, Ravani and Wang compared the effectiveness of work area safety by assessing methods including average speed reduction, speed change, 85% speed, and the proportion of high-speed vehicles and achieved significant results [11].…”