Validation of WAIMSS incident duration estimation model

This paper presents an effort to validate the traffic incident duration estimation model of WAIMSS (wide area incident management support system). Duration estimation model of WAIMSS predicts the incident duration based on an estimation tree which was calibrated using incident data collected in Northern Virginia. Due to the limited sample size, a full scale test of the distribution, mean and variance of incident duration was performed only for the root node of the estimation tree, white only mean tests were executed at all other nodes whenever a data subset was available. Further studies were also conducted on the model error and tree structure issues especially related to complex incidents. The statistical analyses in general, strongly supported WAIMSS estimations of incident duration distribution, mean and variance. The error analysis provided encouraging results based on the distribution of estimation errors and estimation error percentages. A major structural deficiency of the current model was also revealed.