Dynamic Model of Peak Period Traffic Congestion with Elastic Arrival Rates

This paper develops a dynamic model of peak period traffic congestion that considers a limited number of bottlenecks. The model predicts the temporal distribution of traffic volumes with an elastic demand model. The choice of route and mode are dependent on travel times and costs. The choice of departure time is based on the tradeoff between travel time and schedule delay. Delays at bottlenecks are modelled with a deterministic queueing model that determines waiting times. This model is used to perform simulation experiments to analyze the impacts of alternative pricing policies and preferential treatment of High Occupancy Vehicles.