scholarly journals Evaluating Impacts of Overloaded Heavy Vehicles on Freeway Traffic Condition by a Novel Multi-Class Traffic Flow Model

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 4694 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiang Wang ◽  
Po Zhao ◽  
Yanyun Tao

Overloaded heavy vehicles (HVs) have significant negative impacts on traffic conditions due to their inferior driving performance. Highway authorities need to understand the impact of overloaded HVs to assess traffic conditions and set management strategies. We propose a multi-class traffic flow model based on Smulders fundamental diagram to analyze the influence of overloaded HVs on traffic conditions. The relationship between the overloading ratio and maximum speed is established by freeway toll collection data for different types of HVs. Dynamic passenger car equivalent factors are introduced to represent the various impacts of overloaded HVs in different traffic flow patterns. The model is solved analytically and discussed in detail in the appendices. The model validation results show that the proposed model can represent traffic conditions more accurately with consideration for overloaded HVs. The scenario tests indicate that the increase of overloaded HVs leads to both a higher congestion level and longer duration.

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yingdong Liu

A one-dimensional cellular automaton traffic flow model, which considers the deceleration in advance, is addressed in this paper. The model reflects the situation in the real traffic that drivers usually adjust the current velocity by forecasting its velocities in a short time of future, in order to avoid the sharp deceleration. The fundamental diagram obtained by simulation shows the ability of this model to capture the essential features of traffic flow, for example, synchronized flow, meta-stable state, and phase separation at the high density. Contrasting with the simulation results of the VE model, this model shows a higher maximum flux closer to the measured data, more stability, more efficient dissolving blockage, lower vehicle deceleration, and more reasonable distribution of vehicles. The results indicate that advanced deceleration has an important impact on traffic flow, and this model has some practical significance as the result matching to the actual situation.


2003 ◽  
Vol 1852 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-192
Author(s):  
W. L. Jin ◽  
H. M. Zhang

Results are presented from a recent study on a variation of a new non-equilibrium continuum traffic flow model in which traffic sound speed is constant. Hence this model is called the frozen-wave model. This model resembles the Payne–Whitham model but avoids the “back-traveling” of the latter. For this frozen-wave model, the Riemann problem is analyzed for its homogeneous system, two numerical solution methods are developed to solve it, and numerical simulations are carried out under both stable and unstable traffic conditions. These results show that under stable conditions, the model behaves similarly to the Payne–Whitham model. However, under unstable traffic conditions, it has nonphysical solutions or no solutions when a vacuum problem occurs. This study, on the one hand, provides a more complete picture of the properties of this frozen-wave model and reduces the risk of improper applications of it. On the other hand, it also highlights the need to adopt a density-dependent sound speed.


2013 ◽  
Vol 380-384 ◽  
pp. 237-240
Author(s):  
Xiao Wei Wei

With worsening traffic condition in large and medium-sized cities, it has become one of the most important steps for the urban traffic strategy to solve the traffic problems. Since the urban traffic is a complex system in various factors and huge scale, to establish related mathematical model through computer numerical simulation is a significant solution to the comprehensive problems of complex analysis, decision and planning. At present researches on the problems have been achieved in many foreign countries, but domestic research is not enough, especially in the practical application. The macroscopic traffic flow model and microscopic traffic flow model are described and cellular automaton model, dual channel decision model and car-following model are analyzed in this paper, prediction of the ideal traffic flow and trip distribution is consequently concluded, which deepen the understanding to the traffic flow of various phenomenon intrinsic mechanism and predict most closely to the actual situation of traffic flow, which can make fundamental work for traffic flow simulation and for real-time traffic control[1-3].


Author(s):  
Delina Mshai Mwalimo ◽  
Mary Wainaina ◽  
Winnie Kaluki

This study outlines the Kerner’s 3 phase traffic flow theory, which states that traffic flow occurs in three phases and these are free flow, synchronized flow and wide moving jam phase. A macroscopic traffic model that is factoring road inclination is developed and its features discussed. By construction of the solution to the Rienmann problem, the model is written in conservative form and solved numerically. Using the Lax-Friedrichs method and going ahead to simulate traffic flow on an inclined multi lane road. The dynamics of traffic flow involving cars(fast moving) and trucks(slow moving) on a multi-lane inclined road is studied. Generally, trucks move slower than cars and their speed is significantly reduced when they are moving uphill on an in- clined road, which leads to emergence of a moving bottleneck. If the inclined road is multi-lane then the cars will tend to change lanes with the aim of overtaking the slow moving bottleneck to achieve free flow. The moving bottleneck and lanechange ma- noeuvres affect the dynamics of flow of traffic on the multi-lane road, leading to traffic phase transitions between free flow (F) and synchronised flow(S). Therefore, in order to adequately describe this kind of traffic flow, a model should incorporate the effect of road inclination. This study proposes to account for the road inclination through the fundamental diagram, which relates traffic flow rate to traffic density and ultimately through the anticipation term in the velocity dynamics equation of macroscopic traffic flow model. The features of this model shows how the moving bottleneck and an incline multilane road affects traffic transistions from Free flow(F) to Synchronised flow(S). For a better traffic management and control, proper understanding of traffic congestion is needed. This will help road designers and traffic engineers to verify whether traffic properties and characteristics such as speed(velocity), density and flow among others determines the effectiveness of traffic flow.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (12) ◽  
pp. 2050167
Author(s):  
Qi-Lang Li ◽  
Rui Jiang ◽  
Zhong-Jun Ding ◽  
Bing-Hong Wang

This study examines the cellular automata traffic flow model, which considers the asynchronous update of vehicles’ velocities. Computer simulations are used to identify three typical phases: linear free flow phase, nonlinear moving phase and traffic jam phase. Compared to the original NaSch model, the system of the present model can reach the maximum flow when the vehicle density is higher. The influence of the delay probability and the maximum time step in which drivers intend to keep their current velocity on fundamental diagram is discussed.


2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (20) ◽  
pp. 1550137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chun-Xiu Wu

The traveling wave solution of a unified higher-order traffic flow model is investigated with a discontinuous fundamental diagram under the Lagrange coordinate. The equilibrium velocity is a piecewise function which consists of two concave functions. The weak solution theory is applied to study the traveling wave solution of the model, in which a set of equations about the characteristic parameters are obtained. Through numerical simulation, the moving cluster solutions of the anisotropic and isotropic traffic flow models are reproduced, respectively. The numerical results agree with the analytical ones.


Author(s):  
K. N. Porfyri ◽  
I. K. Nikolos ◽  
A. I. Delis ◽  
M. Papageorgiou

Since the early days of traffic engineering, traffic flow stability has attracted a lot of attention, as the frequent occurrence of traffic jams, caused by small perturbations in traffic flow such as a sudden deceleration of a vehicle, deteriorate the performance of traffic flow and the utilization of the available infrastructure. Such traffic jams are usually related to instabilities in traffic flow, resulting in the formation of stop-and-go waves, propagating upstream the traffic flow. Emerging technologies in the field of Vehicle Automation and Communication Systems (VACS), such as Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) systems, appear to be a remedy to reduce the amplitude or to eliminate the formation of such traffic instabilities. To this end, this work aims to derive a stability threshold of a novel macroscopic model, developed to simulate the flow of ACC-equipped vehicles, and study the impact of such vehicles on the stabilization of the traffic flow, with respect to small perturbations. The adopted macroscopic approach reflecting ACC traffic dynamics is based on the gas-kinetic (GKT) traffic flow model. The analytic results show that ACC vehicles enhance the stabilization of the traffic flow; the instability region is very narrow and by reducing the ACC time-gap setting it moves to higher values of density.


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