Comparing numerical integration schemes for time-continuous car-following models

Martin Treiber and Venkatesan Kanagaraj

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2015, vol. 419, issue C, 183-195

Abstract: When simulating trajectories by integrating time-continuous car-following models, standard integration schemes such as the fourth-order Runge–Kutta method (RK4) are rarely used while the simple Euler method is popular among researchers. We compare four explicit methods both analytically and numerically: Euler’s method, ballistic update, Heun’s method (trapezoidal rule), and the standard RK4. As performance metrics, we plot the global discretization error as a function of the numerical complexity. We tested the methods on several time-continuous car-following models in several multi-vehicle simulation scenarios with and without discontinuities such as stops or a discontinuous behavior of an external leader. We find that the theoretical advantage of RK4 (consistency order 4) only plays a role if both the acceleration function of the model and the trajectory of the leader are sufficiently often differentiable. Otherwise, we obtain lower (and often fractional) consistency orders. Although, to our knowledge, Heun’s method has never been used for integrating car-following models, it turns out to be the best scheme for many practical situations. The ballistic update always prevails over Euler’s method although both are of first order.

Keywords: Time-continuous car-following model; Numerical integration; Euler’s method; Ballistic update; Runge–Kutta method; Consistency order (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437114008383
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:419:y:2015:i:c:p:183-195

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2014.09.061

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().