A cell-based multiple vehicle type dynamic user equilibrium model with physical queues

Abstract

This paper proposes a cell-based multiple vehicle type dynamic user equilibrium model with physical queues. A single-type traffic flow model is extended to a general case with multiple vehicle types that can be partly solved by the time-space discretization method. Then, a network version of the multiple vehicle type cell transmission model is given. An integrated variational inequality (VI) formulation is presented to capture the complex traveler choice behaviors such as route and departure time choices. Furthermore, a genetic algorithm with a flow-swapping method is adopted to solve the VI problem. Two examples are used to evaluate the properties of this formulation. The results show that the model can reflect dynamic phenomena, such as multiple vehicle type speed consistent under congested conditions, queue formation and dissipation and so on. Moreover, the solutions can approximately follow the multiple vehicle type dynamic route and departure time user equilibrium conditions.