Modeling Multi-Lane Traffic Flow with Queuing Effects

TL;DR

This paper introduces a gas-kinetic traffic model for multi-lane freeways that explicitly incorporates queuing effects, providing a more comprehensive understanding of lane interactions and traffic flow dynamics.

Contribution

It generalizes existing Boltzmann-like traffic models to include queuing effects and derives macroscopic equations for multi-lane traffic, improving upon previous models.

Findings

Model accounts for lane-changing and queuing effects.

Derives macroscopic equations for multi-lane traffic.

Provides corrections to earlier traffic models.

Abstract

On the basis of assumptions about the behavior of driver-vehicle units concerning acceleration, deceleration, overtaking, and lane-changing maneuvers, a gas-kinetic traffic model for uni-directional multi-lane freeways is constructed. Queuing effects are explicitly taken into account in an overall manner. The resulting model is a generalization of Paveri-Fontana's Boltzmann-like traffic model and allows the derivation of macroscopic traffic equations for interacting lanes, including velocity equations. The related effective macroscopic traffic model for the total freeway cross-section is also derived. It provides corrections with respect to previous traffic models, but agrees with them in special cases.