An empirical study of common traffic congestion features based on traffic data measured in the USA, the UK, and Germany

Based on real traffic data measured on American, UK and German freeways, we study common features of traffic congestion. We have found that traffic features [J] and [S] defining traffic phases “wide moving jam” (J) and “synchronized flow” (S) in Kerner’s three-phase theory are indeed common spatiotemporal traffic features observed in the UK, the USA and Germany. For the testing of Kerner’s “line J”, representing the propagation of the wide moving jam’s downstream front, four different methods for a study of moving jam propagation in empirical data are studied and compared for each congested traffic situation occurring in the three countries. A statistical study of velocities of wide moving jam fronts is presented, which has been performed through the analysis of database containing more than 280.000 min of observed wide moving jams measured on about 1200 km long freeway network in Hessen (Germany) during more than two years.