Higher-Order Continuum Model and Its Numerical Solutions for Heterogeneous Traffic Flow with Non-lane Discipline

Abstract

The aim of this study is to capture the behaviour of non-lane based heterogeneous traffic flow which is predominantly occupied by vehicles with varying physical and dynamical characteristics and their staggered car following behaviour. In order to describe this behaviour, the study presents the higher-order heterogeneous continuum model considering the effect of roadway width and the lateral friction offered by sideways movement. Further, the model also incorporates the viscosity term by considering the higher-order terms. The eigenvalues of the system show that the new model overcomes the non-physical solutions such as isotropic behaviour and wrong way travel which can be seen in other higher-order models. The numerical simulation results show that the proposed model is able to capture complex traffic flow patterns such as shock and rarefaction waves, stop-and-go, local cluster effect, etc. One-sided lateral gap in the model improves the stability region of the traffic flow and able to dissipate the perturbation quickly when compared to other models. The results obtained are consistent with the empirical observations.