Performance Measures for Freight & General Traffic : Investigating Similarities and Differences Using Alternate Data Sources

2015PDFTech ReportDTRT13-G-UTC33Probe vehiclesData collectionFreight trafficHighway trafficPerformance measurementSpeedTravel timeReliabilityCluster analysisResearch HubUnited StatesVirginia Center for Transportation Innovation and ResearchHabtemichael, FilmonPaleti, RajeshCetin, MecitOld Dominion University. Transportation Research InstituteUnited States. Dept. of Transportation. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and TechnologyUS Transportation CollectionRecent advances in probe vehicle data collection systems have enabled monitoring traffic conditions at finer temporal and spatial resolution. The primary objective of the current study is to leverage these probe data sources to understand if there are any significant differences between freight and general traffic characteristics. To this end, different types of performance measures (PMs) including speed, travel time, and reliability were estimated from three different data sources- INRIX, HERE, and ATRI. The analyses conducted for the Hampton Roads network suggest that while in most cases general traffic PMs serve as a good proxy for characterizing freight traffic, in some cases, there can be significant differences either in average speeds/travel times or reliability (i.e., variation about mean). So, in the absence of freight-specific data, researchers planning to use general traffic data as a surrogate must exercise caution