Travel time reliability affected by accident in freeway with connected vehicles

Road accidents usually cause great congestions, and shock waves generate due to the congestions, which severely affect travel time reliability (TTR) of upstream vehicles. Connected vehicles can get and spread information of the accident vehicles, which assists drivers in estimating TTR of the road and making better route choice. The major work of this paper is the proposal of a TTR model to calculate the TTR of freeway affected by accident. Information of time delay, accident position, accident duration and traffic flow status, which can be obtained from connected vehicles, are used. To better explain the TTR model, a simulation case analysis is given, effect of accident duration variance on TTR is also tested. Results show that TTR model in freeway affected by accident based on connected vehicles is practical, and the TTR increases with the variance. The research results are helpful to drivers.