Phenomena-Based Traffic Flow Multi-scale Modelling

Abstract

The aim of multi-scale modelling is developing both theoretical and computational methods that can be used to couple microscopic, mesoscopic and coarselevel descriptions of complex traffic system, in order to describe a variety of phenomena. In multi-scale modelling approach, the modelling paradigms are switched dynamically depending on traffic condition. One important question in this approach pertains to the criteria that trigger the switching mechanism. The time and position of shifting from one modelling paradigm to the next should be chosen such that the consistency of traffic features at the interface between implemented models is ensured. This paper presents a generic simulation strategy that enables shifting paradigm from one modelling scale to the next, based on the propagation and emergence of traffic phenomena. The interface between implemented models in this approach, dynamically adapt its position regards the phenomenon of interest. The paper concludes with an illustrative example that shows the applicability of our proposed methods.