Chapter 5

Conclusion & Future research

In this chapter, we conclude about our research work. We also give an outline of our
future research.

5.1 Conclusion
We have studied a macroscopic traffic model known as LWR model, which is quasi-
linear first order partial differential equation used to predict density, velocity and flow
(flux) profile at certain points of a highway using artificially assumed initial density and
the density at the boundary. We have shown the analytic solution of traffic flow model
by the method of characteristics which is in implicit form. For this we have discussed
the numerical solution of the traffic flow model. The finite difference scheme has been
used to solve the traffic flow model. Computer programming language has been used
to predict density profile for the implementation of the explicit upwind difference
scheme.

In the numerical simulation, we have used the initial density of a certain point at any
time and the constant density at boundary, 21 vehicles/0.1 km. We have verified the
qualitative behavior of different flow variables of the traffic flow model. The outcome of
different parameters of the model has also been presented. The flow was visualized by
plotting the densities with respect to the distance for various times. We have predicted
the velocity and flux with respect to the distance and these results are very much
consistent with the values of the parameters as chosen. This motivates us to extend
this numerical scheme for further modification of the model.

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5.2 Future research
This research represents the potential of the macroscopic traffic flow model for the
application to a single lane highway by applying nonlinear density-velocity relationship.
This model can also be applied for multilane highway. However this approach still has
some drawbacks which are proposed as topics of our future research.

 The performance of the model in this research has been evaluated under
limited conditions. The model should be tested with more traffic data collected
under various conditions considering even more congestion types, geometric
and weather conditions and driver’s efficiency.

 In this research the traffic flow has been simplified for single lane highway. For
a more detailed simulation of traffic flow for multilane highway a more
differentiated traffic behavior should be considered i.e. the lane changing
effects.

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