The applicability of catastrophe theory in modelling freeway traffic operations

A freeway operations model based on catastrophe theory has recently been proposed. The model has not yet been fully developed, but has been advanced to a functional form which appears very promising. To date, the number of data sets which have been used to verify the model’s applicability has been small. This paper analyses some new data with respect to the essential properties of catastrophe theory, and with respect to some of the decisions made in the model’s initial development. The catastrophe theory model continues to show promise, but requires some rethinking to ensure accurate replication of freeway operations data.