Phases of scaling and cross-correlation behavior in traffic

Jan W. Kantelhardt, Matthew Fullerton, Mirko Kämpf, Cristina Beltran-Ruiz and Fritz Busch

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2013, vol. 392, issue 22, 5742-5756

Abstract: While many microscopic models of traffic flow describe transitions between different traffic phases, such transitions are difficult to quantify in measured traffic data. Here we study long-term traffic recordings consisting of ≈2900 days of flow, density, and velocity time series with minute resolution from a Spanish motorway. We calculate fluctuations, cross-correlations, and long-term persistence properties of these quantities in the flow–density diagram. This leads to a data-driven definition of (local) traffic states based on the dynamical properties of the data, which differ from those given in standard guidelines. We find that detrending techniques must be used for persistence analysis because of non-stationary daily and weekly traffic flow patterns. We compare our results for the measured data with analysis results for a microscopic traffic model, finding good agreement in most quantities. However, the simulations cannot easily reproduce the congested traffic states observed in the data. We show how fluctuations and cross-correlations in traffic data may be used for prediction, i.e., as indications of increasing or decreasing velocities.

Keywords: Motorway traffic phases; Time series analysis; Cross-correlations; Detrended fluctuation analysis; Comparison of real-world data and simulations; Microscopic traffic model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:392:y:2013:i:22:p:5742-5756

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2013.07.024

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