Towards a Unified Theory of Road Traffic

Abstract

The operating speed y of a car is a function of desired speed x and traffic density λ, where x and y are random variables, and λ a real parameter. Relationships are proposed between the distributions of x and y and quantities which occur in empirical studies of traffic. It is postulated that for large λ queuing theory may be usefully employed, and several necessary modifications are discussed. A résumé of literature is included.