Transportation Planning and Traffic Flow Models

TL;DR

This paper clarifies the distinctions between transportation planning models and traffic flow models, reviewing historical and recent developments to aid engineers and policymakers in understanding their differences and applications.

Contribution

It provides a detailed comparison of transportation planning and traffic flow models, highlighting recent advances and clarifying their respective roles in transportation analysis.

Findings

Clear differentiation between planning and flow models

Review of recent developments in traffic modeling

Enhanced understanding for engineers and policymakers

Abstract

In this paper, we focus on the different traffic flow models that exist in literature. Due to our frequently encountered confusion among traffic engineers and policy makers, this paper goes into more detail about transportation planning models on the one hand, and traffic flow models on the other hand. The former deal with households that make certain decisions which lead to transportation and the use of infrastructure, as opposed to the latter which explicitly describe the physical propagation of traffic flows in a road network. Our goal is not to give a full account (as that would be a dissertation of its own, given the broadness of the field), but rather to impose upon the reader a thorough feeling for the differences between transportation planning and traffic flow models. Because of the high course of progress over the last decade (or even during the last five years), this paper tries to chronicle both past models, as well as some of the latest developments in this area.