Reply to "What Faster-than-traffic Characteristic Speeds Mean for Vehicular Traffic Flow"

Abstract

This contribution replies to H. M. Zhang's paper "What Faster-than-traffic Characteristic Speeds Mean for Vehicular Traffic Flow", which comments on the manuscript "On the Controversy around Daganzo's Requiem for and Aw-Rascle's Resurrection of Second-Order Traffic Flow Models" published in this issue of Eurpean Physical Journal B. The author clarifies several points and agrees that suitable experiments can be a way of deciding the controversy on the existence of propagation speeds faster than the speed of vehicles. Moreover, he proposes to aim at an integrated theory, which is both, theoretically consistent and practically relevant.