Update on the Statistical Analysis of Traffic Countings on Two-Lane Rural Highways

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of model identification, calibration and validation for traffic countings on two-lane rural highways. A criterion for preliminary selection of arrival laws as a function of appropriate sample statistics and a technique for deciding whether sample data sets of traffic counting are congruent with stationary time series behavior are suggested; besides arrival laws currently used in research and engineering practice, the Neyman distribution has been also applied although it is not frequently implemented in the field of traffic engineering. Moreover, this work aims at applying these methods to a set of empirical data derived from a recent survey on two two-lane rural highways; the arrival laws that best agree with the observations are found and the relations between the parameters identifying the arrival laws and the flow rates are worked out. Finally, the results have been compared to those achieved in similar observations, carried out by one of the authors in the past.