Criterion for traffic phases in single vehicle data and empirical test of a microscopic three-phase traffic theory

Based on empirical and numerical microscopic analyses, the physical nature of a qualitatively different behaviour of the wide moving jam phase in comparison with the synchronized flow phase—microscopic traffic flow interruption within the wide moving jam phase—is found. A microscopic criterion for distinguishing the synchronized flow and wide moving jam phases in single vehicle data measured at a single freeway location is presented. Based on this criterion, empirical microscopic classification of different local congested traffic states is performed. Simulations made show that the microscopic criterion and macroscopic spatiotemporal objective criteria lead to the same identification of the synchronized flow and wide moving jam phases in congested traffic. Microscopic models in the context of three-phase traffic theory have been tested based on the microscopic criterion for the phases in congested traffic. It is found that microscopic three-phase traffic models can explain both microscopic and macroscopic empirical congested pattern features. It is obtained that microscopic frequency distributions for vehicle speed difference as well as fundamental diagrams and speed correlation functions can depend on the spatial co-ordinate considerably. It turns out that microscopic optimal velocity (OV) functions and time headway distributions are not necessarily qualitatively different, even if local congested traffic states are qualitatively different. The reason for this is that important spatiotemporal features of congested traffic patterns are lost in these as well as in many other macroscopic and microscopic traffic characteristics, which are widely used as the empirical basis for a test of traffic flow models, specifically, cellular automata traffic flow models.