Flexible and efficient model-based congestion detection approach

This paper addresses the problem of road traffic congestion detection. We propose an effective approach to detect traffic congestion by combining the piecewise switched linear traffic (PWSL) and Shewhart control scheme. This approach uses PWSL model to describe the evolution of traffic density, and Shewhart chart to detect traffic congestions based on residuals obtained from PWSL model. The PWSL-Shewhart approach is evaluated using traffic data from the four-lane State Route 60 (SR-60) freeway in California. Results indicate that our approach accomplished reliable detection of traffic congestion.