Cross-comparison of numerical schemes for macroscopic traffic flow models

Journal article (2004)

Authors

D Ngoduy Transport and Planning - CEG
S.P. Hoogendoorn Transport and Planning - CEG
H.J. van Zuylen Transport and Planning - CEG
Research Group
Transport and Planning (CEG) (TU Delft)
More Info
expand_more

Published Date

2004

Language

Undefined/Unknown

Reuse Rights

Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.

Faculty

Civil Engineering & Geosciences

Department

Transport and Planning

Research Group

Transport and Planning

Abstract

The aim of this paper is threefold. For one, we present a new computation scheme for the numerical approximation of solutions of Payne-type models. This scheme is proven to satisfy the positive constraints of traffic variables and thus prevents traffic from moving upstream. Secondly, we propose an automated model calibration approach, which is applied to determine the parameters of the considered macroscopic model for different numerical schemes (Steger-Warming, MacCormack, and the proposed numerical scheme). Thirdly, we will cross-compare the different calibrated numerical approximation models by comparing model predictions with observations from the validation dataset.
Based on this cross-comparison, we conclude that the proposed numerical scheme is both more accurate and more robust than the other schemes considered. It yields a small mean squared error, fast computation due to the ability to use a larger time step, and also provides accurate results in regions where the gradients of the speeds and densities are high.