| Travel Time Reliability is the technical expression used to describe the quantifiable certainty that a traveler has of the length of time that a trip will require. Although most of the research on this topic focuses on urban areas, travel time and its corresponding reliability are pertinent to rural areas as well. People like to know with reasonable certainty how long it will take them to arrive at their destination. Some rural routes have travel times that almost never deviate outside of a small time range because of predictable road conditions. The corridor of interest for this research topic is the I-80 corridor between Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming. The main cause of unreliability on this corridor is the weather, which can be particularly volatile during the winter. Using speed sensors set at 14 locations along this section of I-80, the travel time and travel time reliability were measured. Travel time information may convey to the public the severity of current road weather conditions. In order to apply this method to similar corridors, the minimum density of speed sensors necessary for accurate travel time estimates will be found on this corridor. |
