High-resolution central-upwind scheme for second-order macroscopic traffic flow models

Abstract

Traffic flow models are important tools for traffic management applications such as traffic incident detection and traffic control. In this paper, we propose a novel numerical approximation method for second-order macroscopic traffic flow models. The method is based on the semi-discrete central-upwind numerical flux and high-order reconstructions for spatial discretizations. We then apply the designed high-resolution schemes to three representative types of second-order traffic flow models and perform a variety of numerical experiments to validate the proposed methods. The simulation results illustrate the effectiveness, simplicity and universality of the central-upwind scheme as numerical approximation method for macroscopic traffic flow models.