Inflow Outflow Effect and Shock Wave Analysis in a Traffic Flow Simulation

This paper investigates the effect of inflow, outflow and shock waves in a single lane highway traffic flow problem. A constant source term has been introduced to demonstrate the inflow and outflow. The classical Lighthill Whitham and Richards (LWR) model combined with the Greenshields model is used to obtain analytical and numerical solutions. The model is treated as an IBVP and numerical solutions are presented using Lax Friedrichs scheme. Godunov method is also used to present shock wave analysis. The numerical procedures adopted in this investigation yield results which are very much consistent with real life scenario in terms of traffic density and velocity.