Abstract: Traffic flow theory is a means towards understanding better how the road and traffic system works in order to improve it. Some traffic flow theory is deterministic, but a great deal of it is stochastic because it tries to take into account randomness in the characteristics of road users and vehicles, and in the individual choices of different road users. The flow of traffic remote from road junctions has been analysed macroscopically in terms of relationships between speed, flow and density, and microscopically in terms of the individual vehicles that make up the stream of traffic. Traffic flow at junctions and in other situations where queueing occurs has been analysed by means of the general principles of queueing theory, suitably adapted to traffic situations. Traffic queues vary greatly in detail, but have in common that their behaviour depends strongly upon the ratio of the average arrival rate to the average rate at which vehicles can depart while there is a queue. This ratio, called the traffic intensity, characterises the difference between congested and relatively uncongested conditions. Theory of traffic flow can be used to estimate the effects on traffic conditions of changes that the engineer or planner may be able to make, and, in suitable cases, to indicate what changes would be optimal in some predefined respect. Even where theory is incomplete, it can help in the application of simulation or the design of empirical observations (a).
Publication Year: 1984
Publication Date: 1984-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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