Computational simulation of a macroscopic traffic model for highways in Pakistan

Traffic congestion on roads is one of the major problems these days. Traffic models play vital role in traffic research and in traffic applications such as prediction of traffic congestion and traffic control. This paper discusses two types of traffic models and further deliberates on macroscopic traffic models. Macroscopic traffic models are aimed at studying the traffic behavior using a continuum approach, where the movement of vehicles exhibits many attributes of fluid motion. In this paper, computational simulations of a macroscopic traffic model are carried out using various model parameters related to traffic situation on Pakistan´s national highways for large scale networkwide applications. Moreover, simulations results revealed a misconception that expansion of roads is a solution for reducing traffic congestion on highways. This paper fulfils an identified need to study traffic models and use them to find solutions of traffic problems in Pakistan.