The Impact of Rubbernecking on Urban Freeway Traffic

Jonathan Masinick, Hualiang Teng, Nesley Orochena

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA.
Traffic Engineer at Michael Baker Corporation, Richmond, USA.

DOI: 10.4236/jtts.2014.41012                

Abstract

An incident influences traffic not only in the incident direction but also in the opposite direction. There has been a research on the influence of incidents on the traffic in the incident direction. However, the research relating to the influence on the opposite direction of traffic is rare. In this study, the impact of incidents on the traffic in the opposite direction was investigated, focusing on identifying the factors that influence the likelihood and traffic delay of rubbernecking. In the investigation, a database consisting of incident information, traffic and other related variables was developed. For each incident in the database, it determined whether the impact of rubbernecking on the opposite direction traffic was significant. Factors that influenced the likelihood of rubbernecking were identified based on developing a binary logit model. Traffic delays in the opposite direction due to accidents were also calculated. A linear regression model was developed from which the influencing factors on traffic delay were identified. Based on the study on the likelihood of rubbernecking and the associated traffic delay, effective countermeasures were developed.

Keywords

Rubbernecking; ITS Data; Regression Modeling

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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