Discontinuous Galerkin finite element scheme for a conserved higher-order traffic flow model by exploring Riemann solvers

The discontinuous Galerkin (DG) scheme is used to solve a conserved higher-order (CHO) traffic flow model by exploring several Riemann solvers. The second-order accurate DG scheme is found to be adequate in that the accuracy is comparable to the weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) scheme with fifth-order accuracy and much better than the scheme with first-order accuracy in resolving a wide moving jam with a shock profile. Moreover, it considerably reduces the differences between the proposed solvers in generating numerical viscosities or errors. Thus, this scheme can maintain high efficiency when a simple solver is adopted. The scheme could be extended to solve more complex problems, such as those related to traffic flow in a network.