Generally urban freeway is the principal arterial corridor that is intended to provide for high levels of safety and efficiency in the movement of high-volumes of traffic at high speeds in the big city. However, most of the urban freeways are experiencing a severe congestion with the incoming or outgoing traffic through the freeway interchange regardless of the peak periods. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate and analyze the real-time traffic characteristics, and construct the travel delay predictive models on the diverge sections in the congested urban freeway interchange in city of Busan.
From the results of the real-time traffic characteristic analyses, construction and verification for the delay predictive models on the diverge sections of the urban freeway interchange under the study, the following conclusions were drawn
i) Traffic flow showed a big difference depending on the time periods in the urban freeway interchange. Particularly more traffic were concentrated on the urban freeway interchange in the daytime period when compared with the nighttime period.
ii) Traffic flow also showed a quite difference depending on the travel directions in the urban freeway interchange. Particularly more traffic were concentrated on the urban freeway interchange in the inbound direction when compared with the outbound direction.
iv) The delay predictive models showed a higher explanatory power in the inbound direction and the daytime period, but a lower explanatory power in the outbound direction and the nighttime period.
v) The urban freeway traffic management system(UFTMS) measure like the variable message sign(VMS) was shown to be more effective on the inbound exit ramp in the morning rush hour.