TABLE OF CONTENTS

REFERENCES

This note contributes to the discussion on the current state and the prospectives of macroscopic traffic flow modelling. It is argued that macroscopic traffic flow models may never reach the descriptive accuracy level of other domains in physics and engineering. On the other hand, there is an eminent need for computer codes emulating dynamic traffic phenomena for various traffic engineering tasks (simulation, planning, control strategy design and testing etc.) hence the need to emphasize practical model validation work at the current stage of developments. Some properties of macroscopic traffic flow models are outlined and the usefulness of second-order approaches, as evidenced in empirical validation results, is underlined.

A slightly shorter version of this note has been accepted for publication in Transportation Research B and will be published shortly. Following the recommendation of a reviewer, the journal version of the note has a shorter section 2. In particular, the illustration of some arguments by using Penrose’s attributes superb, useful, and tentative has been dropped therein. The main reason for printing the note as an Internal Report is in order to provide to potential readers the full argumentation as it was originally conceived by the author.