Talk:Traffic flow

2005
I just started to write something about this topic in really interested in (and I'm working on, too). I hope someone will like it. I'll add something more these days, I hope. achab 10:50, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Good start
Yes this is a good start. Some parts (notably the three "scales" section) need to be rewritten to sound more like an article. I'd remove the use of second person and perhaps explain the scales a bit more. I would work on it, but I'm afraid of changing the content, as I don't understand exactly what it means (sorry about my lack of expertise. Horncomposer 01:09, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Should there be something here about the Traffic Assignment Problem, Deterministic User Equilibrium (DUE), and Stochastic User Equilibrium (SUE). -- Anonymous

I don't know these problems, sorry. --achab 10:30, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Little improvement
tx. now I changed a few senteces, to clarify it a little. I hope the readers will be satisfied... lol achab 23:18, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Merge from Traffic flow analysis
Please merge any relevant content from [ Traffic flow analysis] per Articles for deletion/Traffic flow analysis. (If there is nothing to merge, just leave it as a redirect.) Thanks. —Quarl (talk) 2007-02-26 09:39Z 

Globalised a bit
I've added some European perspective as the article seemed to be written from a purely theoretical/USHA perspective. I've tried not to make it a sales catalogue, but the road authorities here often develop their own approaches which they build into software packages (via commercial contracts) and them mandate the use of their sw packages on the schemes that they fund. Ephebi (talk) 12:10, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

lead
currently reads: The first attempts to give a mathematical theory of traffic flow dated back to the 1950s, but to this day we still do not have a satisfactory and general theory to be applied in real flow conditions. I propose: Attempts to produce a mathematical theory of traffic flow date back to the 1950s but have so far failed to produce a general theory that can be consistently(?) applied to real flow conditions. My interest is purely to make the text flow better - I don't know enough about the subject to know what the original author meant exactly, otherwise I would have just gone ahead and made the copyedit. Can anyone clarify? Scriblio (talk) 11:40, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * IME (which is a few years old now...) the starting model in a scheme is calibrated by applying factors so that the current state matches the actual measured flows. The results that you would expect to see in a model also depends on the level of detail that you attempt to model, so I'm not even sure that premise is very relevant. Be bold ;-)  Ephebi (talk) 20:34, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Article name : "Traffic flow theory" or "Traffic flow"
User:Jack-A-Roe had moved this page to "Traffic flow theory" without notification or consultation. Before renaming the article again perhaps the merits can be discussed here first? I have restored the page back to its original title as "Traffic flow". According to the reference given, "traffic flow theory" is jargon for one US-specific instance of the wider study and modelling of traffic flow (see Revised Monograph on Traffic Flow Theory). That instance relates to the theoretical capacity of free flowing networks; while perhaps it is useful for rural inter-urban expressways it is only part of the story as, AIUI, it is not very relevant to a lot of the design of non-congested, urban networks. thus using the jargon title would de-facto exclude a large proportion of the article and make it US-specific. 23:13, 27 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I support renaming the article.
 * "Traffic flow" (at least in the USA) is a very ordinary expression that refers to the actual speed, congestion etc. of traffic.  The article content, however, is entirely about the scientific theory and analysis of traffic flow. I am not a professional in the field, so I can't comment as to whether "Traffic Flow Theory", "Traffic Flow Modelling", or something else would be the best title.
 * @Previous commenter: I think you meant to type "congested, urban" rather than "non-congested, urban" in your last sentence.NinetyNineFennelSeeds (talk) 20:00, 10 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't see why theory and practice couldn't be covered in the same article. So "traffic flow" seems appropriate to me. It's just that nobody has written about the common usage of the word yet. But ditto NinetyNineFennelSeeds, I don't actually know anything about the topic. -- intgr [talk] 17:04, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Related articles
Newell's Car Following Model and Three-detector problem and Newell's method - notable enough for separate articles? Perhaps merge here. Rd232 talk 11:17, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

"Traffic Stream Properties" Section Needs Improvement
The section currently named 'Traffic Stream Properties' is in desperate need of improvement. The content of the section seems good, but as it is, the page is very poorly laid out. The equations reference variables and diagrams that are never defined, and it is very unclear. Also, the use and notation of some of the variables could be greatly improved. (June 17, 2011)

It is a direct copy of "Application of the Theory of a Single First Order Equation to Traffic Flow" and does not cite the paper correctly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:4D:2C28:E000:D9EC:FB87:9DDB:702D (talk) 17:19, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Need to discuss "Exception & Overload Situations"
Congestion models tend to assume that traffic densities are averages - whether hourly, daily, weekly or annually. This makes sense from a reductionist standpoint, but fails to consider the exceptional clustering effects of holiday traffic. For example: travel along US-101 from San Francisco to Los Angeles on a non-holiday weekday compared to travel on the day before Thanksgiving.

Also need something on driver aggression index as this is a big factor in behavorial predictions of traffic flow extremes.

23.242.213.119 (talk) 16:25, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

"cumulative cout curve"
I'm not sure what this phrase means. Is "cout" a typo for "count"? -- John of Reading (talk) 08:47, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Major clean up
I've undertaken a major clean up of this article.

I suspect students were encouraged to add information as part of an assignment. While their good faith edits are appreciated and the content may be suitable for Wikipedia with extensive editing and clean up, I've decided to trim these sections significantly from article as they are mostly uncited, unsuitable for Wikipedia, or belong in sub articles.
 * In December 2016, added uncited work on Tandem Queues and Traffic Lights.
 * In December 2017, added uncited work on Hamilton Jacbobi PDE, Initial Value Problem, Boundary Value Problem.
 * In December 2017, added slightly sourced content on Newell-Daganzo Merge Models.
 * In December 2018, added an essay on Variable speed limit assignment.
 * In December 2018, added unsourced section on car-following models.
 * In December 2018, added unsourced section on Single vehicle dynamics
 * In December 2018, added unsourced section on The Transport Equation
 * In December 2018, edited sections on traffic assignment.


 * This has been going on much longer than I expected.
 * December 2012
 * December 2012
 * December 2012
 * December 2012
 * December 2011
 * December 2011
 * December 2011
 * This is tough because the content is typically topical but its added like a textbook or academic journal. The content lacks context and is uncited. To keep on Wikipedia it needs almost complete rewriting. I've trimmed much of it but tried to keep the cited bits and parts that were salvgable. -Eóin (talk) 01:28, 9 June 2021 (UTC)


 * It's often a problem with these kinds of student assignments. It's such a waste, the instructors could tell these students how to properly write a Wikipedia article so that they can actually contribute instead of wasting everybody's time. --Ita140188 (talk) 02:14, 10 June 2021 (UTC)