Tipping points of traffic delay

Start date: 1 October 2023
End date: 31 July 2024
Value: £59,384.00
Primary investigator: Dr Zhiyuan Lin
External primary investigator: Nurettin Cirakli (external)
Co-investigators: Professor Ronghui Liu
External co-investigators: Steve Walker and Jake Clarkson
Postgraduate students: Ruifan Tang

A tipping point is the threshold where traffic flow shifts from a free-flowing state to congestion. This project aims to formally define and automatically detect these tipping points using traffic attributes such as average flow, speed, and other features like road type and infrastructure characteristics across all managed highways. We develop two detection methods: Maximum Curvature and Kinetic Energy-based approaches. These methods successfully identify highway sections that consistently reach or approach their unique tipping points. We then visualise and cluster these problematic sections, while exploring the underlying and external factors influencing the tipping points.

Impact

National Highways is considering integrating the tipping point detection model developed in this project into their large-scale traffic prediction and evaluation system in the future.