Traffic fluctuations are complex phenomena, difficult to apprehend and toanticipate. It is said that the road network is congested when the numberof vehicles exceeds the physical capacity of the road. Then the flux of vehicles does not run out any more at normal speed. A traffic jam can be recurring at the peak hours or, exceptional, after an exceptional event occurred (incident on the road, accident, etc). The problems of the recurring traffic jam are raised in all the metropolises of the world and raise the following questions: What is the tendency of the traffic on the road network? Is it possible to know where and when the traffic is flowing or is saturated? How to detect the recurring traffic jam without an automatic traffic system? This paper presents an original method for the treatment of theroad traffic jam using measurements obtained from a vehicle detector. This method is illustrated using specific cases. It enables the isolation of the recurring traffic jam from the exceptional traffic jam. It provides the road manager with a calculator of the hours from the beginning to the end of the recurring congestion. For the covering abstract see ITRD E139491.
Abstract