Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze incident characteristics in a contemporary urban setting. Using data from the I-10 Freeway in Los Angeles, California, the analysis develops a model of incident duration as a function of incident characteristics. The results provide the basis for estimating congestion impacts of incidents on heavily traveled urban freeways. Section 2 of the paper presents a review of the previous literature. Section 3 presents the conceptual basis of the study, and tl1e data are described in Section 4. Incident characteristics and frequency are discussed in Section 5; model development and duration analysis are presented in Section 6. The paper concludes with a discussion of the research findings and their implications for incident management policy.