Assessment of non-recurrent congestion caused by precipitation using archived weather and traffic flow data

Since precipitation has a negative impact on traffic congestion, there have been various studies for modeling the relationship between precipitation and its impact on traffic flow. However, due to limitations on existing data, none of the previous studies have accounted for the estimation of the total delay caused by precipitation. The objective of this study is to estimate the non-recurrent traffic congestion on freeways caused by precipitation. To accomplish this objective, archived weather and traffic data for the year 2008 from the Korean Freeway Systems was collected and analyzed. As a result, non-recurrent traffic congestion was about 1.6 million vehicle-hours due to rainfall and 186,000 vehicle-hours due to snowfall in 2008. In addition, simple analyses were performed to describe the average non-recurrent traffic congestion per unit distance as a function of precipitation and a function of the time period of precipitation. Although precipitation events might not be handled by human efforts, these results will assist in making strategic plans such as active speed management and contingency planning for mitigating traffic congestion due to precipitation.

► A method to estimate non-recurrent congestion caused by precipitation was developed.
► Archived weather and traffic data for one year were combined to estimate non-recurrent congestion.
► The simple analyses were performed to describe average non-recurrent congestion per unit distance.