IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/itsrrp/qt0b6612tk.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Cell Transmission Model. Part I: A Simple Dynamic Representation Of Highway Traffic

Author

Listed:
  • Daganzo, Carlos

Abstract

This paper presents a simple representation of traffic on a highway with a single entrance and exit. The representation can be used to predict traffic's evolution over time and space, including transient phenomena such as the building, propagation and dissipation of queues. The easy-to-solve difference equations used to predict traffic's evolution are shown to be the discrete analog of the differential equations arising from a special case of the hydrodynamic model of traffic flow. The proposed method automatically generates appropriate changes in density at locations where the hydrodynamic theory would call for a shockwave; i.e. a jump in density such as those typically seen at the end of every queue. The complex side calculations required by classical methods to keep track of shockwaves are thus eliminated. The paper also shows how the equations can mimic the real-life development of stop-and-go traffic within moving queues. The model predicts that the oscillation pattern is independent of the initial impulse from downstream (as one would expect), and that oscillations should not increase delay unless they result in car stalls or other incidents. The results in this paper can be used for simple traffic engineering analyses. Most importantly, they are a fundamental building block for traffic prediction over networks. The ability to make such predictions can lead to better strategies for ramp metering and incident detection. A sequel to this paper will examine highway networks. The representation's simplicity should make it possible to keep track of each vehicle's final destination throughout a simulation, even for complex networks. This capability should help improve traffic control packages and dynamic traffic assignment methods.

Suggested Citation

  • Daganzo, Carlos, 1992. "The Cell Transmission Model. Part I: A Simple Dynamic Representation Of Highway Traffic," Institute of Transportation Studies, Research Reports, Working Papers, Proceedings qt0b6612tk, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Berkeley.
  • Handle: RePEc:cdl:itsrrp:qt0b6612tk
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/0b6612tk.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Arnott, Richard & Inci, Eren, 2010. "The stability of downtown parking and traffic congestion," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 260-276, November.
    2. Tilg, Gabriel & Ambühl, Lukas & Batista, Sergio & Menendez, Monica & Busch, Fritz, 2021. "On the application of variational theory to urban networks," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 435-456.
    3. Daganzo, Carlos F. & Lin, Wei-Hua, 1993. "The Spatial Evolution of Queues During the Morning Commute in a Single Corridor," Institute of Transportation Studies, Research Reports, Working Papers, Proceedings qt6q68k2fv, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Berkeley.
    4. Yang, Hanyi & Du, Lili & Zhang, Guohui & Ma, Tianwei, 2023. "A Traffic Flow Dependency and Dynamics based Deep Learning Aided Approach for Network-Wide Traffic Speed Propagation Prediction," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 99-117.
    5. Santos Sánchez-Cambronero & Fernando Álvarez-Bazo & Ana Rivas & Inmaculada Gallego, 2021. "Dynamic Route Flow Estimation in Road Networks Using Data from Automatic Number of Plate Recognition Sensors," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-30, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdl:itsrrp:qt0b6612tk. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/itucbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.