Effects of Weather on Highway Traffic Capacity in China: Characteristics and Causes of Roadblocks Due to Fog Events
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Pure and Applied Geophysics
Effects of Weather on Highway Traffic Capacity in China: Characteristics and Causes of Roadblocks Due to Fog Events YING JIANG,1 NAN ZHANG,2
AIXUN LI,1 HAO WU,1 RUNCHUN LI,3 and JING YANG1
Abstract—Fog-induced highway roadblocks (access restrictions and traffic congestion) include not only the influence of fog conditions on traffic capacities but also human factors and traffic conditions that affect highway traffic. They directly reflect the combined effects of weather conditions, traffic conditions, and human factors on the flow of traffic. This work systematically studies the characteristics and causes of fog-blocked events in China and finds that the annual total mileage of highways in China that are blocked by fog events is roughly 178% of the entire national highway mileage. The distribution of fog-blocked events is very uneven in China, with 88.5% of annual totals occurring in East China, Central China, and North China. The high-occurrence period for fog roadblocks is around sunrise, whereas its lowoccurrence period is from noon to nightfall. Roadblocks occur more frequently, with earlier peak time, in South China than in North China. Winter represents the high-occurrence period for fogblocked events, followed by spring, autumn, and summer. Fog distribution characteristics, along with seasonal and diurnal variations, are generally consistent with those of fog-blocked events. All the above characteristics indicate that fog conditions are the main reason for fog-induced highway roadblocks. In addition, roadblocks are also affected by traffic flow, road network density, culverts and bridges, curved roads, slopes, and other conditions. Keywords: Fog, highway, roadblocks, risk index.
1. Introduction Fog is a common weather phenomenon, consisting of water droplets and ice crystals suspended in air or near ground, with visibility less than 1 km (Gultepe et al. 2007). Road traffic blocks and traffic
1 Public Meteorological Service Centre, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, China. 2 Huafeng Meteorological Media Group, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, China. E-mail: [email protected] 3 Yangquan Meteorological Bureau, Yangquan, Shanxi, China.
accidents have always been important global economic and social problems. The World Health Organization (2018) report shows that road traffic injuries are the eighth leading cause of death in humans and the leading cause of death for those aged 5 to 29 years. From 2003 to 2016, approximately 1.3 million people died and 5 million people were injured each year in road traffic accidents worldwide. The main factors contributing to road accidents are human factors, traffic conditions, and weather conditions (Haynes et al. 2007; Kononov et al. 2008). Human factors mainly refer to the driving ability and unsafe driving behavior of drivers, according to Maryland’s Highway Safety Plan (2015). Traffic conditions refer to the characteristics of road infrastructure and traffic flow (Elvik et al. 2004; Aarts and Schagen 2006). Weather fac
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