California Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology

The Los Angeles Freeway Service Patrol (FSP) Evaluation project is measuring the effectiveness of the FSP program on a specific freeway site in Los Angeles. This report describes the site selection and database development phases of the project. From an initial list of ten possible sites, detailed analysis was performed in order to rank the sites according to specific parameters developed by the study team. Site selection was based on congestion levels, average travel speeds, shoulder width, number of in-lane FSP assists, average daily traffic, directionality and the density of functional loop detectors. The site selected was FSP Beat 8, which is located on Interstate Route 10, between Eastern Avenue and Santa Anita Avenue.

Once the site was selected, a detailed, comprehensive, computerized database was developed. This database completely describes the traffic conditions along Beat 8 for 32 weekdays, for a total of six hours each day. This 192-hour database includes detailed descriptions for 1,560 incidents, tach vehicle travel time traces for 3,619 runs (at 5.7 minute headways), and loop detector data (30-second flow and occupancy) from 240 loop detectors. Finally, the CHP has provided electronic CAD logs for the entire study period. Further to the documentation included in this report, preliminary incident analysis is included in PATH Working Paper 97-18 and the methodology and preliminary evaluation results are included in PATH Working Paper 97-17.