2014数模美赛A2014数模美赛A.doc

Solutions for Homework for Traffic Flow Analysis 1. On a specific westbound section of highway, studies show that the speed-density relationship is: . The highway’s capacity is 3800 vehicles/hour and the jam density is 140 vehicles/km. What is the space mean speed of the traffic at capacity and what is the free flow speed. Solution: as we know q = ku, thus, we can write the following: q = ku = k*. When traffic flow is at the maximum, dq/dk = 0. Thus, we can write the following: . As the free-flow speed uf can not be equal to zero, thus, we can write: . Therefore, km = 91.1 vehicles/km. Since we know qm = 3800 vehicles/hour. And again, qm = kmum, then we can calculate um = 41.7 km/hour. Then, we can calculate uf from the given equation: . In the end, we may obtain: uf = 53.5 km/hr. 2. A section of highway has the following flow-density relationship: q = 80k – 0.4k2. What is the capacity of the highway section, the speed at capacity, and the density when the highway is one-quarter of its capacity? Solution: since we know the q-k relationship, we apply the same logic: dq/dk = 0 in order to obtain km. (dq/dk) = 80-0.8k = 0, thus, km = 100 vehicles/km. We can also obtain qm = 4000 vehicles/hour. We also know that q = km. Then, um = qm/km = 40 km/hour. When the highway is one quarter of its capacity, it means that q = 0.25qm = 1000 vehicles/hour, we can use the given equation: q = 80k – 0.4k2, to calculate the density when q = (1/4)qm. Thus, k = 186 km/hour or 13.8 km/hour. 3. An observer has determined that the time headways between successive vehicles on a section of highway are exponentially distributed, and that 60% of the headways between vehicles are 13 seconds or greater. If the observer decides to count traffic in 30 second intervals, estimate the probability of the observer counting exactly four vehicles in an interval. Solution: let us denote h as the random variable, representing the time headways between successive vehicles. We know that Pr(h