Need for a Comprehensive Traffic Simulation Model in Indian Context

In developing countries like India, the rapid growth of cities has resulted an extensive increase in the road network. The numbers of motorized vehicles have increased manifolds, especially during the peak hours. Congestion problems in cities simultaneously alarm both the users as well as the decision makers. Controlling, suggesting remedial measures, making changes to the existing traffic system in urban India is becoming more and more complex day after day. Traffic Engineering is hence coming to the limelight in India to understand and analyze the traffic stream behaviour for an efficient design of traffic facilities. Unfortunately, the large body of literature that exists in the area of traffic flow theory cannot be used as is in countries like India due to the following reasons. Firstly, traffic here includes innumerable classes of vehicles having different operating characteristics. Secondly, drivers in India do not follow lanes i.e., the traffic streams do not have lane discipline.