TITLE:
The Impact of Rubbernecking on Urban Freeway Traffic
AUTHORS:
Jonathan Masinick, Hualiang Teng, Nesley Orochena
KEYWORDS:
Rubbernecking; ITS Data; Regression Modeling
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Transportation Technologies,
Vol.4 No.1,
January
26,
2014
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.