Netw Spat Econ DOI 10.1007/s11067-008-9080-9 Urban Traffic Jam Simulation Based on the Cell Transmission Model Jiancheng Long · Ziyou Gao · Xiaomei Zhao · Aiping Lian · Penina Orenstein © Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008 Abstract There have been different approaches which have been proposed to understand the mechanism of traffic congestion propagation. In this paper, we use the cell transmission model and apply it to simulate the formation and dissipation of traffic jams at the microscopic level. In particular, our model focuses on jam propagation and dissipation in two-way rectangular grid networks. In the model, the downstream exit of the link is channelized to represent the interactions of vehicles in different directions. We have used traffic jam size and congestion delay to measure jam growth and dispersal. Numerical examples exploring the impact of model parameters on jam growth and congestion delay are provided. The simulation results show that there are two strategies to minimize jam size and reduce time for jam dissipation: (1) reduce the length of channelized area and, (2) allocate the stopline widths for all directions in the same ratio as the demands. Furthermore, we obtain some new results about gridlock and discuss the effect of incident position and link length on jam propagation. Keywords Traffic jams · Cell transmission model · Jam dissipation · Channelization J. Long (B ) · Z. Gao · X. Zhao · A. Lian School of Traffic and Transportation, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, 100044, People’s Republic of China e-mail: 04114182@bjtu.edu.cn P. Orenstein Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey, USA