Genealogy of traffic flow models

• Published in: EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics Vol. 4; no. 4; pp. 445 - 473
• Main Authors: van Wageningen-Kessels, Femke, van Lint, Hans, Vuik, Kees, Hoogendoorn, Serge
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Elsevier B.V 01.12.2015; Springer Berlin Heidelberg
• Subjects: Business and Management; Convergence; Fundamental diagram; Genealogy; Literature reviews; Logistics; Macroscopic models; Management Science; Mathematical models; Mesoscopic models; Microscopic models; Operations Research; Operations Research/Decision Theory; Optimization; Survey; Traffic flow models; Traffic models; Transportation; Trees; Fundamental diagram; Mesoscopic models; Macroscopic models; Microscopic models; Traffic flow models
• ISSN: 2192-4376; 2192-4384
• DOI: 10.1007/s13676-014-0045-5

An historical overview of the development of traffic flow models is proposed in the form of a model tree. The model tree shows the genealogy of four families: the fundamental relation, microscopic, mesoscopic and macroscopic models. We discuss the families, branches and models. By describing the historical developments of traffic flow modeling, we take one step further back than conventional literature reviews that focus on the current state-of-the-art. This allows us to identify the main trends in traffic flow modeling: (1) convergence of many branches to generalized models, (2) adaptations and extensions of the LWR model to deal with real phenomena, (3) multi-class versions of many models and, (4) the development of hybrid models combining the advantages of different types of models.