Affiliation:
1. Department of Civil, Constructional and Environmental Engineering, University of Rome La Sapienza, Via Eudossiana 18, 00184 Rome, Italy
2. Department of Civil, Environmental and Mechanical Engineering, University of Trento, Via Mesiano 77, 38123 Trento, Italy
3. Faculty of Technological & Innovation Sciences, Universitas Mercatorum, Piazza Mattei, 10, 00186 Rome, Italy
Abstract
Rural roads, often characterized by winding paths and nearby settlements, feature frequent curvature changes, junctions, and closely spaced private accesses that lead to significant speed variations. These variations are typically represented by average speed or v85 profiles. This paper examines complete speed distributions along rural two-lane roads using Floating Car Data (FCD). The Wasserstein distance, a non-parametric similarity measure, is employed to compare speed distributions recorded by a radar Control Unit (CU) and a selected FCD sample. Initially, FCD speeds were validated against CU speeds. Subsequently, differences in speed distributions between the CU location and specific sections identified by sharp curves, intersections, or accesses have been assessed. The Wasserstein Distance is proposed as the most effective synthetic indicator of speed distribution variability along roadways, attributed to its metric properties. This measure offers a more concise and immediate assessment compared to an extensive array of statistical metrics, such as mean, median, mode, variance, percentiles, v85, interquartile range, kurtosis, and symmetry, as well as qualitative assessments derived from box plot trends.
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