Research on vehicle carrying efficiency of three-lane expressway based on DEA method

ABSTRACT

During the driving process in expressway, the vehicle carrying efficiency is influenced by many factors. However, in the existing researches on microscopic traffic flow, there is a lack of evaluation index system and corresponding calculation, so it is necessary to choose appropriate indicators and evaluation methods to calculate the vehicle carrying efficiency comprehensively. Therefore, in this paper, we establish a cellular automata model of the three-lane expressway and select multiple parameters that influence the vehicle carrying efficiency, which includes three input indicators: vehicle travel time, vehicle fuel consumption, vehicle emission, and two output indicators: vehicle average speed and vehicle ridership. Meanwhile, the data envelopment analysis is used to calculate the vehicle carrying efficiency under different maximum speed limits. From the simulation results, the traffic condition of vehicles is analyzed and corresponding improvement strategies are proposed, which have certain research significance for the traffic management department to formulate reasonable management measures.

KEYWORDS:

• Microscopic traffic flow
• cellular automata
• data envelopment analysis
• vehicle carrying efficiency
• three-lane expressway

Acknowledgments

The authors want to thank the editor and anonymous referees for their valuable comments. This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFB1701400); the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.71473077); the State Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing for Vehicle Body, Hunan University (Grant No. 71775004); and the State Key Laboratory of Construction Machinery (grant number 71775004: SKLCM2019-03).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [No. 71473077]; the State Key Laboratory of Construction Machinery [71775004: SKLCM2019-03]; the National Key R&D Program of China [No. 2018YFB1701400]; the State Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing for Vehicle Body, Hunan University [No. 71775004].