Heterogeneous Traffic Flow Modelling Using Macroscopic Continuum Model

Modelling heterogeneous traffic flow for Asian countries is one of the emerging research areas in the past few years. The two main challenges in modelling are: capturing the effect of varying size of vehicles, and the lack in lane discipline, both of which together lead to the „capacity filling‟ behavior of vehicles. The same section length of the road can be occupied by different types of vehicles at the same time, and the conventional measure of traffic concentration, density (vehicles per lane per unit length), is not a good measure for heterogeneous traffic modelling. This paper addresses the above mentioned two challenges by extending the Aw-Rascle macroscopic model based on continuum theory using area occupancy for traffic concentration instead of density. The aim of the model is to have a parsimonious model of heterogeneous traffic for network wide applications that can capture unique phenomena in heterogeneous traffic flow such as capacity filling. The paper calibrates and validates the model using data from an arterial road in Chennai city.