Arterial Roadway Travel Time Reliability and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Authors

Laurence Rilett, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
Ernest Tufuor, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
Sean Murphy, Traffic EIT, HDR Inc.Follow

ORCID IDs

Laurence R. Rilett, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6925-5306

Ernest Tufuor, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2816-1055

Date of this Version

2021

Citation

Published in Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems 147:7 (2021), #04021034, 13 pp.

DOI: 10.1061/JTEPBS.0000559

Comments

Copyright © 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers. Used by permission.

Abstract

This paper evaluated the effect of the COVID-19 preventive orders on arterial roadway travel time reliability (TTR). A comparative analysis was conducted to examine average travel time distributions (TTD), and their associated TTR metrics, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Travel time data for four urban arterial corridors in Nebraska, disaggregated by peak period and direction, were analyzed. It was found that in 2020, the average TTD mean and standard deviation values for all 16 scenarios were reduced by an average of 14.0% and 43.4%, respectively. The travel time index, the planning time index, the level of travel time reliability (LOTTR), and the buffer index metrics associated with these TTDs were reduced, on average, by 14.0%, 19.7%, 3.5%, and 35.0%, respectively. In other words, whether the test corridors were more reliable during the pandemic was a function of which TTR metric was used. The paper concludes by arguing for a fundamental change in how arterial TTR is measured and reported to different user groups.