BU Research Blog

Bournemouth University (BU) collaborates with the Bournemouth Christchurch Poole (BCP) Council and Cambridge University on modeling traffic congestion propagation. The work, conducted by Dr. Wei Koong Chai and Ph.D. Candidate Assemgul Kozhabek from BU advocates the use of epidemic theory to model the spreading of traffic congestion in cities.

The team proposes a modified Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model that considers the road network structure for a more accurate representation of congestion spreading. Through an N-intertwined modeling framework and analysis using real-world traffic datasets from California and Los Angeles, the study demonstrates improved agreement with actual congestion conditions. The findings offer valuable insights for developing effective traffic congestion mitigation strategies.

Reference:

A. Kozhabek, W. K. Chai and G. Zheng, “Modeling Traffic Congestion Spreading Using a Topology-Based SIR Epidemic Model,” in IEEE Access, vol. 12, pp. 35813-35826, 2024, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3370474.