A Macroscopic Traffic Model Based on Anticipation

In this paper, a new traffic model is presented which considers spatial changes in traffic density to characterize the traffic flow during transitions. The commonly employed Zhang model adjusts the traffic according to the gradient of the equilibrium velocity distribution during transitions regardless of the interaction between vehicles, maximum road density (capacity), or driver sensitivity. As a consequence, the resulting speed and flow can be unrealistic. With the proposed model, the speed and traffic flow during transitions are a function of the headway, traffic density, and velocity profile. Results are presented for discontinuous traffic densities caused by a bottleneck along a circular road which show that this model eliminates the unrealistic behavior of the Zhang model.