 The prigogine-herman kinetic model predicts widely scattered traffic flow data at high concentrationsPaul Nelson and Alexandros Sopasakis Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 1998, vol. 32, issue 8, 589-604 Abstract: The classical derivation of a traffic stream model (e.g. speed/concentration relation) from the equilibrium solutions of the Prigogine-Herman kinetic equation invokes the nontrivial assumption that the underlying distribution of desired speeds is nonzero for vanishingly small speeds. In this paper we investigate the situation when this assumption does not hold. It is found that the Prigogine-Herman kinetic equation has a one-parameter family of equilibrium solutions, and hence an associated traffic stream model, only for traffic concentrations below some critical value; at higher concentrations there is a two-parameter family of solutions, and hence a continuum of mean velocities for each concentration. This result holds for both constant values of the passing probability and the relaxation time, and for values that depend on concentration in the manner assumed by Prigogine and Herman. It is hypothesized that this result reflects the well-known tendency toward substantial scatter in observational data of traffic flow at high concentrations. Date: 1998 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:transb:v:32:y:1998:i:8:p:589-604 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Transportation Research Part B: Methodological is currently edited by Fred Mannering More articles in Transportation Research Part B: Methodological from Elsevier |
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