Feasibility of Using Traffic Data for Winter Road Maintenance Performance Measurement
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Ministry of Transportation University of Waterloo Feasibility of Using Traffic Data for Winter Road Maintenance Performance Measurement HIIFP-000 2014 Publication Feasibility of Using Traffic Data for Winter Road Title Maintenance Performance Measurement Luchao (Johnny) Cao and Liping Fu Author(s) iTSS Lab, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Waterloo Originating Office Design and Contract Standards Office, MTO Report Number Publication Date 2014 Ministry Contact HIIFP/AURORA - Development of Output and Outcome Models for End-results Based Winter Road Maintenance Standards Abstract The research presented in this report is motivated by the need to develop an outcome based WRM performance measurement system with a specific focus on investigating the feasibility of inferring WRM performance from a traffic state. The research studied the impact of winter weather and road surface conditions (RSC) on the average traffic speed of rural highways with the intention of examining the feasibility of using traffic speeds from traffic sensors as an indicator of WRM performance. Detailed data on weather, RSC, and traffic over three winter seasons from 2008 to 2011 on rural highway sites in Iowa, US are used in this investigation. Three modelling techniques are applied and compared to model the relationship between traffic speed and various road weather and surface condition factors, including multivariate linear regression, artificial neural networks (ANN), and time series analysis. Multivariate linear regression models are compared by temporal aggregation (15 minutes vs. 60 minutes), types of highways (two-lane vs. four-lane), and model types (separated vs. combined). The research then examined the feasibility of estimating/classifying RSC based on traffic speed and winter weather factors using multi-layer logistic regression classification trees. The modelling results have confirmed the expected effects of weather variables including precipitation, temperature, and wind speed; it verified the statistically strong relationship between traffic speed and RSC, suggesting that speed could potentially be used as an indicator of bare pavement conditions and thus the performance of WRM operations. It is also confirmed that a time series model could be a valuable tool for predicting real-time traffic conditions based on weather forecast and planned maintenance operations, and that a multi-layer logistic regression classification tree model could be applied for estimating RSC on highways based on average traffic speed and weather conditions. Key Words Winter Road Maintenance, Speed, Modeling Distribution Unrestricted technical audience. Ministry of Transportation University of Waterloo HIIFP-000 Feasibility of Using Traffic Data for Winter Road Maintenance Performance Measurement 2014 Prepared by Luchao (Johnny) Cao and Liping Fu iTSS Lab Department of Civil and Environment Engineering University of Waterloo 200 University Avenue, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1 Tel: (519) 888-4567 Published without prejudice as to the application of the findings. Crown copyright reserved. Acknowledgements The authors wish to acknowledge the assistance of the Ministry of Transportation Ontario (MTO) and Iowa Department of Transportation (Iowa DOT) for providing the data and financial support to this project. In particular, a special thanks should be given to Max Perchanok and Tina Greenfield for all the coordination, guidance and assistance. This report was developed on the basis of Mr. Luchao (Johnny) Cao’s Master’s thesis completed under the supervision of Dr. Liping Fu, director of the iTSS Lab, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Waterloo. The authors also wish to acknowledge the assistance of various members of the iTSS Lab and the University of Waterloo’s community who have assisted in the research and in the preparation of this report, including Lalita Thakali who provided assistance for part of the analysis, Tae J. Kwon for reviewing part of this work, Matthew Muresan for his assistance in preparing this report, Taimur Usman, Garrett Donaher and Feng Feng for providing suggestions and assistance on this research. Thanks should also be given to Dr. Chaozhe Jiang, Ramona Mirtorabi, Kamal Hossain and Raqib Omer, for their support and motivation. - i - Table of Contents Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. iii Table of Contents .................................................................................................................... i List of Figures ......................................................................................................................... v List of Abbreviations and Notations ..................................................................................... vii Executive Summary............................................................................................................. viii Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1 Background ............................................................................................................................................. 1 Winter Road Maintenance and Performance Measurement ................................................................. 1 Research Objectives ................................................................................................................................ 3 Document Organization .......................................................................................................................... 4 Literature Review .................................................................................................................. 5 WRM Performance Measurement .......................................................................................................... 5 Performance Measurement System ................................................................................................. 5 WRM Performance Measurement System ....................................................................................... 6 Current WRM Performance Measures ............................................................................................. 8 Using Traffic Speed as a WRM Performance Measure ................................................................... 13 Factors Affecting Winter Traffic Speed ................................................................................................. 18 Winter RSC Monitoring and Estimation ................................................................................................ 30 Stationary Based RSC Monitoring and Estimation ......................................................................... 31 Mobile Based RSC Monitoring and Estimation ............................................................................... 32 Summary ............................................................................................................................................... 33 Effect of Weather and Road Surface Conditions on Traffic Speed of Rural Highways ............ 35 Problem Definition ................................................................................................................................ 35 Data Collection ...................................................................................................................................... 35 Data Processing ..................................................................................................................................... 37 Data Processing Framework ........................................................................................................... 37 Snow Event Definition and Extraction ............................................................................................ 41 Exploratory Analysis .............................................................................................................................. 43 Methodology ......................................................................................................................................... 50 Multivariate Linear Regression ....................................................................................................... 50 Artificial Neural Network ................................................................................................................ 51 Time Series Analysis ........................................................................................................................ 52 Model Calibration ................................................................................................................................. 54 Multivariate Linear Regression ....................................................................................................... 54 Artificial Neural Network ................................................................................................................ 65 Impact of Winter Road Conditions on Highway Speed and Volume; HIIFP-000 - ii - Time Series Analysis ........................................................................................................................ 66 Model Comparison ......................................................................................................................... 70 Model Validation..................................................................................................................................