A stochastic cellular automaton model for traffic flow with multiple metastable states

We investigate a cellular automaton (CA) model of traffic on a bi-directional two-lane road. Our model is an extension of the one-lane CA model of {Nagel and Schreckenberg 1992}, modified to account for interactions mediated by passing, and for a distribution of vehicle speeds. We chose values for the various parameters to approximate the behavior of real traffic. The density-flow diagram for the bi-directional model is compared to that of a one-lane model, showing the intera...

Cellular automata have turned out to be important tools for the simulation of traffic flow. They are designed for an efficient impletmentation on the computer, but hard to treat analytically. Here we discuss several approaches for an analytical description of the Nagel-Schreckenberg (NaSch) model and its variants. These methods yield the exact solution for the special case $\vm=1$ of the NaSch model and are good approximations for higher values of the velocity ($\vm > 1$). We...

We present a new cellular automata model of vehicular traffic in cities by combining ideas borrowed from the Biham-Middleton-Levine (BML) model of city traffic and the Nagel-Schreckenberg (NaSch) model of highway traffic. The model exhibits a dynamical phase transition to a completely jammed phase at a critical density which depends on the time periods of the synchronized signals.

A family of multi-value cellular automaton (CA) associated with traffic flow is presented in this paper. The family is obtained by extending the rule-184 CA, which is an ultradiscrete analogue to the Burgers equation. CA models in the family show both metastable states and stop-and-go waves, which are often observed in real traffic flow. Metastable states in the models exist not only on a prominent part of a free phase but also in a congested phase.

We propose and study a new one-dimensional traffic flow cellular automaton (CA) model of high speed vehicles with the Fukui-Ishibashi-type acceleration for all cars and the Nagel-Schreckenberg-type (NS) stochastic delay only for the cars following the trail of the car ahead. The main difference in the delay scenario between the new model and the NS model is that a car with spacing ahead longer than the velocity limit $M$ may not be delayed in the new model. By using a car-ori...

We propose a cellular automata model for vehicular traffic in cities by combining (and appropriately modifying) ideas borrowed from the Biham-Middleton-Levine (BML) model of city traffic and the Nagel-Schreckenberg (NS) model of highway traffic. We demonstrate a phase transition from the "free-flowing" dynamical phase to the completely "jammed" phase at a vehicle density which depends on the time periods of the synchronized signals and the separation between them. The intrins...

In this paper, we describe a relation between a microscopic traffic cellular automaton (TCA) model (i.e., the stochastic TCA model of Nagel and Schreckenberg) and the macroscopic first-order hydrodynamic model of Lighthill, Whitham, and Richards (LWR). The innovative aspect of our approach, is that we explicitly derive the LWR's fundamental diagram directly from the STCA's rule set, by assuming a stationarity condition that converts the STCA's rules into a set of linear inequ...

The jamming transition in the stochastic cellular automaton model (Nagel-Schreckenberg model) of highway traffic is analyzed in detail, by studying the relaxation time, a mapping to surface growth problems and the investigation of correlation functions. Three different classes of behavior can be distinguished depending on the speed limit $v_{max}$. For $v_{max} = 1$ the model is closely related to KPZ class of surface growth. For $1<v_{max} < \infty$ the relaxation time has a...

In this paper, we give an elaborate and understandable review of traffic cellular automata (TCA) models, which are a class of computationally efficient microscopic traffic flow models. TCA models arise from the physics discipline of statistical mechanics, having the goal of reproducing the correct macroscopic behaviour based on a minimal description of microscopic interactions. After giving an overview of cellular automata (CA) models, their background and physical setup, we ...

We examine a simple two lane cellular automaton based upon the single lane CA introduced by Nagel and Schreckenberg. We point out important parameters defining the shape of the fundamental diagram. Moreover we investigate the importance of stochastic elements with respect to real life traffic.