Fractal nature of highway traffic data

In this paper, we applied a fractal approach to analyze the traffic data collected from the Beijing Yuquanying. The power spectrum, the empirical probability distribution function, the statistical moment scaling function and the autocorrelation function are used as indicators to investigate the presence of the fractal. The results from the fractal identification methods indicate that these data exhibit fractal behavior. A fractal framework seemed well suited for description of the data observed here, but its suitability for general traffic systems was not clear. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.