MODELING MULTI-STAGE INCIDENTS FOR FREEWAY NETWORK OPERATIONS

A freeway incident can be modeled as a multi-stage capacity variation process depending on the type of incidents and management strategies. In this research, a macroscopic model was developed to simulate various types of incidents on freeways. The resulting model has been incorporated into the KRONOS freeway simulator, which can simulate up to five incidents with six-stages simultaneously in a given stretch of freeway. The simulator can be used in estimating the impacts of different types of incidents on freeway traffic and in evaluating the efficiency of incident management strategies.