Highway Capacity Loss Induced by Rainfall

Abstract

The effect of rainfall on capacity reduction on highways has been investigated. Traffic data was generated for both wet and dry conditions. The data analysis showed that the highway section studied was operating in free flow region. A 2.7% capacity loss was obtained for the road. It is argued that no traffic instability could arise from this situation if the state of traffic remains in the free flow regime. However, in the event of the coincidence of fixed bottlenecks and rainfall, instabilities arising from that could lead to further capacity loss.