Lectures

Web notes with live simulations, slides, and PDFs

Each lecture comes in three forms: web notes with live simulations, slides used in class, and a PDF to print or study offline. Links to the slides and PDF are at the top right of each lecture page.

The first lectures are open to everyone. The rest are shared with enrolled students during the semester.

TipComing up in the course

• 3 · The Fundamental Diagram, and What It Cannot Explain. One curve sums up a road, but real traffic lives off it.
• 4 · Traffic as a Fluid: Conservation and Traffic Waves. Cars are conserved, so a pattern of density travels as a wave.
• 5 · Shock Waves: Why Queues Move Backward. Count the cars, and you get the speed of a queue’s back end, even at a red light.
• 6 · Bottlenecks and the Slow Truck Problem. Lane drops, slow trucks, and delay as the area between two curves.
• 7 · Simulating a Freeway: Two Ways to Compute LWR. Newell’s method and the cell transmission model.
• 8 · Inside the Driver: Car-Following and Lane-Changing. One rule per driver, the traffic it makes, and when to change lanes.
• 9 · Phantom Traffic Jams: When a Line of Cars Turns Unstable. Why exactly 1/2, smart cars, and an AI driver tested in closed loop.
• 10 · Fitting Models to Reality: From Least Squares to Bayesian Calibration. Scores for a fit, how sure we are, and parameters the data cannot see.
• 11 · Where Is the Traffic, and Where Will It Be? Estimating the traffic you cannot see, and forecasts that beat persistence, honestly.
• 12 · Digital Twins and Control: An RL Car and a Real Signal Controller in the Loop. One smart car learns, and a real controller runs with a simulation, faster than real time.