Examining Multistate Mobility Performance in the Mid-America Region

Abstract

Among today’s vast data availability, traffic probe data in particular offer exceptional new opportunities for examining multistate mobility. Invaluable resources such as the National Performance Management Research Data Set (NPMRDS) allow users to assess mobility performance toward improving transportation operations and reliability at a megaregion scale. In this study performance measures are developed for interstate freight mobility consistent across Mid-America, followed by an anomaly scanner that detects significant impacts to mobility such as those from major incidents, work zones, or winter weather. The scanner functions through a process control algorithm developed to scan tens of thousands of interstate kilometers each month to identify major disruptions to passenger and freight mobility. The scanner was validated against several known disruptions, and now provides monthly feedback to coalitions collaborating on multistate mobility performance improvement.