Lane-Based Vehicular Speed Characteristics Analysis for Freeway Work Zones Using Aerial Videos

Work zones which are usually referred to as traffic bottlenecks or critical points may lead to reductions in both operational performance and safety. Most of present studies are based on simulation data or are travel direction-based rather than lane-based. Through the use of drone’s video recording capabilities, this paper aims to explore the vehicular speed characteristics in one type of freeway work zones with considerations for lane and location deviations. A four-to-three lanes work zone was selected for data collection. Then free flow speed variation pattern is analyzed, a speed prediction model is proposed, and the speed-flow relationship is investigated on each lane at nine virtual sections. It is found that the merging area affects the speeds mainly in the segment from 200 m upstream of the taper to the start of the activity area and the speed characteristics depend on vehicle types as well as lane locations.