A kinetic traffic network model and its macroscopic limit: merging lanes

Abstract: In this paper we propose coupling conditions for a kinetic two velocity model for vehicular traffic on networks. These conditions are based on the consideration of the free space on the respective roads. The macroscopic limit of the kinetic relaxation system is a classical scalar conservation law for traffic flow. Similar to the asymptotic limit of boundary value problems for kinetic models, we consider here the limit of the full network problem including the coupling conditions at the nodes. An asymptotic analysis of the interface layers at the nodes and a matching procedure using half-Riemann problems for the limit conservation law are used to derive coupling conditions for classical macroscopic traffic models on the network from the kinetic ones.