In this thesis, capacity distributions of Munich motorways were investigated using Product Limit Method. Capacity analysis of motorways is a very important issue in transportation engineering. A fair investigation of capacity can monitor the obstacles against the high capacity usage and may eventually lead to decreases in traffic congestions, travel time as well as emissions. Munich is surrounded with a good motorway network, however traffic demand is quite high and accordingly congestions are very likely to occur. Consequently, it would be very beneficial to make a capacity analysis for those motorways. Capacity is defined in HCM (2000) as the maximum flow rate that can reasonably be expected to traverse a facility under prevailing roadway, traffic and control conditions. Whereas, unlike this deterministic definition, it has been strongly discussed that capacity is a stochastic concept, it should involve some probabilistic features such as driver behaviour, weather conditions. For a reliable capacity analysis, Product Limit Method is accepted to be the most suitable method since it not only serves a stochastic approach but also ends up with a probabilistic distribution. Product Limit Method is also highly applied for capacity analyses in recent researches. Eight different bottleneck points on Munich motorways were determined by visual analysis on contour plots. Using the annual data of 2008, capacity distributions were obtained and comprehensively discussed. Impacts of possible different factors such as choice of threshold speed, weather conditions, truck ratio were investigated as well. Results of capacity analysis using Product Limit Method can be very beneficial for new ramp metering and traffic guidance strategies. Those measures will lead to less number of breakdowns and a more fluent flow on motorways. Surely, decreasing the number of breakdowns means less travel times, more safety and less accidents.    «

In this thesis, capacity distributions of Munich motorways were investigated using Product Limit Method. Capacity analysis of motorways is a very important issue in transportation engineering. A fair investigation of capacity can monitor the obstacles against the high capacity usage and may eventually lead to decreases in traffic congestions, travel time as well as emissions. Munich is surrounded with a good motorway network, however traffic demand is quite high and accordingly congestions are...    »