Simulation of Freeway Merging and Diverging Behavior

Simplified theory of kinematic waves was proposed by Newell and uses cumulative arrival and departure counts to describe kinematic waves of freeway traffic. The original paper deals only with traffic on freeway mainline. It is of great interest, at least practically, to investigate whether the simplified theory can be used to simulate freeway traffic merging and diverging behavior. In his paper, Newell assumed that on-ramp traffic always has the priority and can bypass queues, if any. This assumption will be released so that traffic from the mainline and the on-ramp will have to compete for downstream supply. For off-ramps, Newell assumed that all vehicles that want to exit can always be able to do so. Again, this assumption is also released so that queues from either downstream can build up and block upstream traffic.