A DISCRETE MARKOV MODEL OF VEHICULAR TRAFFIC

FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS THE POISSON PROCESS HAS BEEN USED AS A MODEL TO DESCRIBE THE TIME SERIES OF EVENTS OF VEHICLES PASSING A POINT ON A ROADWAY. IN ITS SIMPLEST FORM THE POISSON MODEL DOES NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE FINITE SIZE OF THE VEHICLES NOR DOES IT PROPERLY DESCRIBE THE CHARACTERISTIC BUNCHING OF TRAFFIC THAT COMMONLY OCCURS, FOR EXAMPLE, ON A TWO-LANE ROAD WHEN PASSING IS HINDERED. TO GIVE A MORE COMPREHENSIVE DESCRIPTION OF TRAFFIC, VARIOUS EXTENSIONS OF THE POISSON MODEL AND A VARIETY OF OTHER MODELS HAVE BEEN PROPOSED, WITH VARYING SUCCESS. IN THIS PAPER A DISCRETE MARKOV MODEL OF TRAFFIC IS PROPOSED. THE MODEL IS AN EXTENSION OF THE SIMPLE BINOMIAL MODEL AND ACCOUNTS FOR THE BUNCHING TENDENCY OF TRAFFIC BY ASSUMING CORRELATIONS BETWEEN SUCCESSIVE VEHICLES. A DESCRIPTION IS GIVEN OF THE TIME-ARRIVAL EXPERIMENTS THAT WERE CARRIED OUT TO TEST THE MODEL AND THE STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF THE RESULTS OF THESE EXPERIMENTS IS DISCUSSED. IN ADDITION, SEVERAL THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF THE MODEL ARE EXAMINED. /AUTHOR/

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/oclc/1767714
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Vol 2, No 3, PP 233-251
• Corporate Authors:

  Operations Research Society of America

  428 East Preston Street
  Baltimore, MD  United States  21202
• Authors:
  • Dunne, M C
  • Rothery, R W
  • Potts, R B
• Publication Date: 0

Media Info

• Serial:
  • Transportation Science
  • Volume: 5
  • Issue Number: 2
  • Publisher: Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)
  • ISSN: 0041-1655
  • Serial URL: http://transci.journal.informs.org/

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Binomial distributions; Mathematical models; Passing; Poisson ratio; Statistical analysis; Theory; Time; Time and motion studies; Traffic platooning; Vehicles
• Uncontrolled Terms: Models
• Old TRIS Terms: Poissons ratio
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00227189
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 13 2004 6:56PM