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The complexity of traffic stream behaviour and the difficulties in performing
experiments with real world traffic make computer simulation an important
analysis tool in traffic engineering.
The physical propagation of traffic flows can be specifically described using
traffic flow models.
By making use of different traffic simulation models, one can simulate large
scale real-world situations in great detail.
Depending on the level of detailing, traffic flow models are classified into
macroscopic, mesoscopic and microscopic models.
Macroscopic models view the traffic flow as a whole whereas microscopic ones
gives attention to individual vehicles and their interactions while the
mesoscopic models fall in between these two.
This chapter gives an overview of the basic concepts behind simulation models
and elaboration about the microscopic approach for modelling traffic.
A microscopic model of traffic flow attempts to analyze the flow of traffic by
modelling driver-driver and driver-road interactions within a traffic stream
which respectively analyses the interaction between a driver and another driver
on road and of a single driver on the different features of a road.
Many studies and researches were carried out on driver's behavior in different
situations like a case when he meets a static obstacle or when he meets a
dynamic obstacle.
Among these, the pioneer development of car following theories paved the way
for the researchers to model the behaviour of a vehicle following another
vehicle in the 1950s and 1960s.
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