A Section-Based Queueing-Theoretical Traffic Model for Congestion and Travel Time Analysis in Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a simple, efficient traffic model that divides roads into sections with constant capacity, focusing on flow and travel times rather than individual vehicles, inspired by queueing network models.

Contribution

It presents a novel section-based queueing-theoretical model for traffic flow that simplifies analysis and captures key features of congestion and travel times.

Findings

Model is simple and numerically efficient

Accurately captures congestion dynamics

Focuses on flows and travel times rather than individual vehicles

Abstract

While many classical traffic models treat the spatial extension of streets continuously or by discretization into cells of a certain length, we will subdivide roads into comparatively long homogeneous road sections of constant capacity with an inhomogeneity at the end. The related model is simple and numerically efficient. It is inspired by models of dynamic queueing networks and takes into account essential features of traffic flows. Instead of treating single vehicles or velocity profiles, it focusses on flows at specific cross sections and average travel times of vehicles.