The influence of the road layout on the Network Fundamental Diagram

The influence of the road layout on the Network Fundamental Diagram

Knoop, V.L.
De Jong, D.M.
Hoogendoorn, S.P.

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Transport and Planning

2014-01-12

The Macroscopic or Network Fundamental Diagram (NFD) describes the relationship between the network flow and the number of travellers within the network. The shape of the NFD is important for control purposes like perimeter control or routing. However, it is unknown how the network structure influences the shape of the NFD. This is studied in this paper. Also, the influence of adding urban arterials, decreasing homogeneity but adding road capacity, is studied. Finally, the effect of the location of these arterials is studied. For this purpose, a tool is developed which can create realistic networks with preset characteristics (road length and road type). The exact network is created at random. Simulation shows that networks with similar characteristics have different NFDs. Also, networks which have arterials next to urban roads are created with the tool. Simulation shows that spread in the NFD is higher for these more heterogeneous networks and the maximum production is lower. The exact location of a major road crossing the network does not have a large effect. All in all, we conclude that the NFD is network-specific and must be calibrated for a particular network.

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:2640153b-9d02-4e7d-90e3-19b4bed03eff

Transportation Reseach Board

93rd Annual Meeting Transportation Research Board, Washington, USA, 12-16 January 2014; Authors version

Institutional Repository

conference paper

(c) 2014 The Author(s)