Traffic flow modelling with junctions

Motivated by the modelling of a roundabout, we are led to study the traffic on a road with points of entry and exit. In this note, we would like to describe the modellisation of a junction and solve the Riemann problem for such a model. More precisely, between each point of discontinuity we use a multi-class extension of the LWR model to describe the evolution of the density of the vehicles, the 'multi-class' approach being used in order to distinguish the vehicles after their origin and destination. Then, we treat the points of entry and exit thanks to special boundary conditions that give bounds on the flows of the different types of vehicles. In the case of the one-T road we obtain a result of existence and uniqueness. This first step allows LIS to obtain a similar result for the n-T road. We describe these results and also some properties of the obtained Solutions, in order to see how long this model is valid. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.