Actual Situation Analyses of Rat-Run Traffic on Community Streets Based on Car Probe Data.

Lowering of so-called "rat-run" traffic on community streets has been one of significant challenges for improving the living environment of neighborhood. However, it has been difficult to quantitatively grasp the actual situation of ratrun traffic by the traditional surveys such as point observations. This study aims to develop a method for extracting rat-run traffic based on car probe data. In addition, based on the extracted rat-run traffic in Toyohashi city, Japan, we try to analyze the actual situation such as time and location distribution of the rat-run traffic. As a result, in Toyohashi city, the rate of using rat-run route increases in peak time period. Focusing on the location distribution of rat-run traffic, in addition, they pass through a variety of community streets. There is no great inter-district bias of the route frequently used as rat-run traffic. Next, we focused on some trips passing through a heavily used route as rat-run traffic. As a result, we found the possibility that they habitually use the route as rat-run because their trips had some commonalities. We also found that they tend to use the rat-run route due to shorter distance than using the alternative highway route, and that the travel speeds were faster than using the alternative highway route. In conclusions, we confirmed that the proposed method can quantitatively grasp the actual situation and the phenomenal tendencies of the rat-run traffic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]