Statistical analysis of the peak hour headways in a freeway weaving section: A case study on Riyadh Makkah road

The headway distribution study offers an insight into vehicle flow that can be useful to traffic studies and management in many respects; for example, with a better understanding of road traffic patterns and road user behavior, the researchers or engineers could make better estimate and predict traffic flow under certain road traffic conditions and thus improve traffic management. There is some research on headways in Saudi Arabia for free flow traffic on freeways, but few studies are for congested areas, such as weaving sections. This study has been done to statistically analyze headways in the weaving area of Makkah Road in Riyadh during peak time and find an appropriate distribution of headways. Headway data were acquired from the captured images of the traffic data recorded by video cameras. The following statistical analysis was based on that data. A special program was used to find a best-fit distribution for the headways, which was followed by a statistical verification process using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov (K-S) test.