State-of-the art of macroscopic traffic flow modelling

Macroscopic traffic flow models are suited for large scale, network wide applications where the macro-characteristics of the flow are of prime interest. A clear understanding of the existing macro-level traffic flow models will help in modelling of varying traffic scenarios more accurately. Existing state-of-the-art reports on traffic flow models have not considered macro-level models exclusively. This paper gives a review of macroscopic modelling approaches used for traffic networks including recent research in the past decade. The modelling of the two main components of the network i.e. links and nodes are reviewed separately in two sections and solution procedures are discussed followed by a synthesis on the advantages and disadvantages of these models. This review should encourage efficient research in this area towards network level application of these models.