Analysis of highway bottlenecks

Abstract

Engineers have made use of one of two common methods in analysing highway bottleneck problems. These two methods queueing analysis and shock-wave analysis - are compared in this paper. The reasons why there are possible discrepancies in the results from the two methods are suggested. If the problem is compatibly formulated, the two methods give similar results, provided that these results are correctly interpreted. Although shockwave analysis can provide an understanding of the physical length of the moving queue approaching the bottleneck, queueing analysis is still more advantageous in that it is a simpler procedure to apply.