Identifying critical roads in urban road networks considering congestion propagation

Urban congestion poses growing challenges to mobility and sustainability. While enhancing traffic control can alleviate urban congestion, limited resources necessitate prioritizing traffic management on critical road segments. However, few studies have considered the impact of congestion propagation for identification critical roads in urban road networks. This study proposes a novel evaluation method for identifying critical roads by integrating congestion features and propagation impacts within dynamic city congestion environments. Firstly, a congestion propagation model based on dynamic variation features of traffic flow distribution is introduced. Then, by combining local traffic information, the road evaluation method for identifying critical roads based on two factors at a time, congestion level, and congestion propagation process is provided. Finally, application to a case study of the Xi’an City, China road network demonstrates the evaluation method outperforms existing methods in identifying critical roads for network robustness enhancement. Moreover, the distinctive spatiotemporal patterns in Xi’an City road network, particularly the intensified clustering phenomena of critical roads under peak hour traffic conditions are analyzed. The findings emphasize the significance of considering traffic redistribution phenomena in congestion propagation. Suggesting the synthetic evaluation methods for identifying critical roads, offering valuable insights for effective traffic congestion management strategies.