Operational Analysis on Beijing Road Network during the Olympic Games

Monitoring and analyzing performances of urban road traffic is a crucial work to ensure traffic operation well during the Olympic Games in Beijing and evaluate the effects of traffic demand management strategies and measures. In this paper, as the basis for performance analysis, a traffic congestion evaluation index system which consists of comprehensive and characteristic indices is introduced. Beijing floating car system is also used to collect real-time data of urban road traffic. In addition, expressways, arterial roads, some of the secondary roads and branch roads over the area within the 5th ring road are selected as the evaluation objects. Moreover, urban traffic operation performances are compared among pre-Olympics, during the Olympic Games and during the Paralympics Games from the aspects of the intensity, duration, extension of traffic congestion, the distribution of recurrent bottlenecks and average speed. It is concluded that the urban traffic is in the level of “smooth” during the Olympic Games and the Paralympics Games comparing with the “moderate-congested” status before the Olympic Games. The vehicle speeds of urban traffic network increase obviously under the Olympic traffic demand management strategies and measures.