Traffic flow headway distribution and capacity analysis using urban arterial road data

The estimation of capacity for urban arterial road plays an important role within the transportation profession, since it is applied in the planning, design, and operation of virtually every urban arterial road facility. Road capacity is the reasonably expected maximum sustainable flow rate under given conditions. In this paper, we classified the urban arterial road to different type. Based on the relationship between the headway distribution and the road capacity, we try to find the proper model of headway distribution of different road types. Then we give the recommended capacity value separately. Data is collected from loop detectors on different sites of the urban arterial road in Beijing.