A BEHAVIORAL THEORY OF MULTI-LANE TRAFFIC FLOW. PART II: MERGES AND THE ONSET OF CONGESTION

Building on the continuum model presented in Part I, this paper focuses on the onset of congestion in multi-lane freeway traffic past on-ramps. Fast vehicles entering from an on-ramp usually stay on the shoulder lane of the freeway for some distance before merging into the fast lane, so an idealization is proposed where this distance is taken to be the same for all vehicles. As a result, the system behaves as if there were a fixed buffer zone downstream of the on-ramp where entering vehicles cannot change lanes. The continuum model is extended to capture the peculiarities of traffic within such a buffer zone, including its two end-points: the entrance and the merge. This highly idealized model explains qualitatively all the puzzling facts discussed in part I without introducing obviously unreasonable phenomena. The queue generation process is described in qualitative detail and quantifies the process systematically with the different kinds of waves introduced in part I. Detailed predictions should allow the model to be falsified or verified with new experiments.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/01912615
• Corporate Authors:

  Elsevier

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  Kidlington, Oxford  United Kingdom  OX5 1GB
• Authors:
  • Daganzo, C F
• Publication Date: 2002-2

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: p. 159-169
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Part B: Methodological
  • Volume: 36
  • Issue Number: 2
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 0191-2615
  • Serial URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01912615

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Behavior; Drivers; Freeways; Lane changing; Merging area; Merging traffic; Multilane highways; On ramps; Traffic congestion; Traffic flow; Traffic lanes; Traffic queuing; Traffic speed
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I71: Traffic Theory;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00823564
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS, ATRI
• Created Date: Jan 26 2002 12:00AM