METANET model improvement for traffic control

The METANET model, deduced based on equilibrium state assumption, provides a candidate model for freeway traffic control design since it has both speed and density dynamics, but the previous work parameterized the speed control variable to be highly nonlinear, which caused difficulty in control design and implementation. Besides, the model could not catch quick and significant changes in traffic dynamics. This paper suggests improvement on the dynamics model in two aspects: (a) to drop the nonlinear parameterization in the speed control variable for simplicity; and (b) to propose several alternatives for the convection term of the speed dynamics. Model calibration using Berkeley Highway Lab data and simulation for comparison are presented to show the effectiveness of the improvements.