Empirical investigation on stochastic Dutch freeway capacity

Road capacity is a fundamental concept in highway and traffic engineering. With the advent of huge empirical traffic data, empirical investigation on freeway capacity is possible. This paper uses three different methods to empirically estimate both pre-queue capacity and queue-discharge capacity on Dutch freeways, under different measurement time intervals and different weather conditions. It shows that, in general, capacity under precipitation weather conditions is 14% lower than under dry weather conditions; queue-discharge capacity is 19% lower than pre-queue capacity; 15-minute aggregate capacity is 5% lower than 5-minute aggregate capacity. Also, it demonstrates that different methods provide different estimated capacity values. These findings could be used to evaluate the Dutch network design and to assess network performance etc.