Highway Delays Resulting From Flow-Stopping Incidents

Modern highways, particularly the freeways of large cities, carry a considerable volume of traffic during certain times of day. Thus if any interruption or retardation of flow occurs, a large reaction in the shape of a monumental and time-consuming traffic jam soon appears. For example, when an accident or mechanical breakdown gives rise to a severe flow restriction or stoppage, many other vehicles may be quickly halted, and remain stopped until the impediment is cleared away. In addition, the flow of traffic may be slowed considerably even after the original stoppage is removed owing to the existence of a queue. Consequently, vehicles that arrive long after the original restriction is removed experience prolonged, and sometimes seemingly inexplicable, delay. Our purpose is to develop a probability model for the situation described, with the aim of estimating the consequence of a temporary flow restriction. Various measures of (in)effectiveness are worth considering. We consider primarily the total vehicle-hours waited while the jam dissipates; the latter may roughly measure total social cost. The total number of vehicles involved in the jam is also of interest, as are other figures of merit.