Development of Optimized Traffic Stream Models under Heterogeneous Traffic Conditions

摘要

Macroscopic traffic stream models provide relationships among the three basic trafficvariables namely speed, flow and density for steady-state conditions. A number of researchpapers are available proposing different traffic stream models under homogeneous trafficconditions. These models may not be directly suitable for the Indian traffic conditionwhich is heterogeneous and less lane disciplined in nature. Not much research has beenreported on this important aspect so far from India. The present study is an attempt todevelop an optimal traffic stream model suitable for the heterogeneous traffic flowcondition existing in India, taking Chennai as a case study. Several existing functionalforms were attempted, both single regime and multi regime, before reaching the best fittingtwo-regime speed-density relationship using a conventional optimization algorithm. Usingthis, the relationships between speed-flow and flow-density were theoretically derived. Theresults indicate that the proposed model is able to represent the steady-state macroscopicbehavior of the traffic stream with reasonable accuracy.