Journey times from network characteristics and traffic states

Abstract

The service quality of a journey depends on the service quality of transport facilities along the route and, in car transport, on the traffic state. Network planning must therefore assess the service quality not only for single transport facilities and network sections, as it is common practice in the Highway Capacity Manuals. Additionally, the service quality of entire journeys should be examined in network planning. This research aims to shows that a certain service quality for journeys can be achieved by meeting certain target speeds on the level of network sections. For this purpose, generic journey times are computed which consider three typical characteristics of a road network and the traffic state: (1) The detour factor depending on the direct distance of the journey. (2) The share of the journey distance travelled on a specific road category. (3) A road categoryspecific target speed, which also reflects the traffic state.