Macroscopic Traffic Flow Simulation of Freeway Network Congestion Alleviation Strategy.

In this paper, we adopts the means of macroscopic traffic flow simulation to simulate evolution of traffic conditions of the freeway network, including congestion occurrence, transmission and dissipation. Effects of traffic radio based route guidance strategy are also investigated. Visualize output from simulation, such as time-varying trajectories about traffic conditions (speed, flow, etc. ) and snapshots of global traffic network state are given. Simulation of a 3 origin-3 destination freeway network shows that state evolution of traffic network flow is a complex dynamic process. Congestion at local nodes in network (for instance bottlenecks in convergence zones) often leads whole network congestion, which causes traffic delays and little use of road capacity. Macroscopic traffic flow simulation is effective and superior in diagnosis of congestion reasons and in simulating effects of traffic control strategy. This research aims at giving ideas and technical references for design and evaluation of traffic control and management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]