Design and analysis of a real-time quality evaluation index for expressways

Expressways are the important component to the urban road network. The traffic operation quality evaluation report can provide the traffic managers and users decision supports to alleviate the traffic congestion. This paper designs a new traffic loading degree index and calculation method based on time occupancy to evaluate the real time traffic operation quality. Based on huge amounts of traffic data detected from Beijing Expressways, the reference thresholds of the new index are determined to represent different traffic statuses. The experiment analysis using the data from 2^nd Ring Road in Beijing illuminates the method of effectivity and practicability.