Traffic flow simulation through high order traffic modelling

Abstract

Explicit and implicit numerical methods for solving simple traffic flow continuum models have been studied and efficiently implemented in traffic simulation codes. We studied and implemented explicit and implicit numerical methods for solving high-order flow conservation traffic models. The acceleration and inertia effects of the traffic mass are properly addressed in the new formulations. The high order model does not employ equilibrium flow-density relationships. We wrote an experimental code in C to simulate a freeway (un)congested pipeline and freeway entry/exit traffic flow. Tests with real data collected from the I-35 W freeway in Minneapolis were conducted on a workstation computer. The implicit Euler method gave the same (and in some cases better) accuracy as the explicit Lax method. The implicit Euler method was (about three times) faster than the Lax method.