How the rise of trucks has reduced traffic throughput

Abstract This paper collects the morning peak period data of 564 loop detector stations across the Minneapolis-St. Paul freeway network from all workdays of 1995-2019. Stations that repeatedly meet saturation conditions are chosen using fundamental diagrams (FDs) to determine the change in the throughput capacity of the entire network over 25 years. Network throughput drops from approximately 1850 veh/lane/hr in 1995 to approximately 1600 veh/lane/hr in 2019. By connecting motor vehicles type and traffic levels at permanent classification stations, we determine the increase in the number of trucks is in part responsible for the decrease in throughput capacity.