An extended macro traffic flow model accounting for the driver's bounded rationality and numerical tests

In this paper, we propose a macro traffic flow model to explore the effects of the driver's bounded rationality on the evolutions of traffic waves (which include shock and rarefaction waves) and small perturbation, and on the fuel consumption and emissions (that include CO, HC and NOx) during the evolution process. The numerical results illustrate that considering the driver's bounded rationality can prominently smooth the wavefront of the traffic waves and improve the stability of traffic flow, which shows that the driver's bounded rationality has positive impacts on traffic flow; but considering the driver's bounded rationality reduces the fuel consumption and emissions only at the upstream of the rarefaction wave while enhances the fuel consumption and emissions under other situations, which shows that the driver's bounded rationality has positive impacts on the fuel consumption and emissions only at the upstream of the rarefaction wave, while negative effects on the fuel consumption and emissions under other situations. In addition, the numerical results show that the driver's bounded rationality has little prominent impact on the total fuel consumption, and emissions during the whole evolution of small perturbation. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.