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Concept
Fundamental diagram of traffic flow
Summary
The fundamental diagram of traffic flow is a diagram that gives a relation between road traffic flux (vehicles/hour) and the traffic density (vehicles/km). A macroscopic traffic model involving traffic flux, traffic density and velocity forms the basis of the fundamental diagram. It can be used to predict the capability of a road system, or its behaviour when applying inflow regulation or speed limits.
There is a connection between traffic density and vehicle velocity: The more vehicles are on a road, the slower their velocity will be.
To prevent congestion and to keep traffic flow stable, the number of vehicles entering the control zone has to be smaller or equal to the number of vehicles leaving the zone in the same time.
At a critical traffic density and a corresponding critical velocity the state of flow will change from stable to unstable.
If one of the vehicles brakes in unstable flow regime the flow will collapse.
The primary tool for graphically displaying information in the study traffic flow is the fundamental diagram. Fundamental diagrams consist of three different graphs: flow-density, speed-flow, and speed-density. The graphs are two dimensional graphs. All the graphs are related by the equation “flow = speed * density”; this equation is the essential equation in traffic flow. The fundamental diagrams were derived by the plotting of field data points and giving these data points a best fit curve. With the fundamental diagrams researchers can explore the relationship between speed, flow, and density of traffic.
The speed-density relationship is linear with a negative slope; therefore, as the density increases the speed of the roadway decreases. The line crosses the speed axis, y, at the free flow speed, and the line crosses the density axis, x, at the jam density. Here the speed approaches free flow speed as the density approaches zero. As the density increases, the speed of the vehicles on the roadway decreases. The speed reaches approximately zero when the density equals the jam density.
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