Analysis of Breakdown Characteristics by Lane Interaction at Freeway Merging Area with a View of Time and Space

The purpose of this paper is to perform a basic study on the interaction between lanes, which can be achieved through analyzing traffic breakdown at the microscopic level. Using aerial photographic data for the microscopic analysis, this study analyzed the characteristics of traffic flow at a merging area. This research produced aggregated traffic data such as flows, speeds, and densities in 30 second intervals by lane for the macroscopic analysis and individual headway data by lane for the microscopic analysis. The paper contains an analysis of lane characteristics through flows, speeds, densities, and headway variations and also investigates the influence of ramp flows on mainline flows with space-time diagrams. Firstly, the merging area in this study is divided into three sections: before-merging, during-merging, and after-merging. The transition process was analyzed at each lane. Secondly, the breakdown was observed in detail with data divided in 50-foot units. The breakdown was checked through the relationships between ramp and freeway mainline flows, various techniques were proposed to analyze the breakdown, and the formation of breakdown was introduced as three stages in this study. In the near future, the findings of this study could contribute to determining the dynamic capacity on freeways by easily understanding changeable traffic breakdown patterns over time and space.