Why Does Traffic Jam Acts Universally?

Tsumugi Ishida and Yūki Sugiyama ()
Additional contact information
Tsumugi Ishida: Nagoya University, Department of Complex Systems Science
Yūki Sugiyama: Nagoya University, Department of Complex Systems Science

A chapter in Traffic and Granular Flow '13, 2015, pp 541-547 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The theoretical reason for the existence of universal features of traffic jams forming in various places and with different number of cars on highways is provided using exact solutions of a mathematical model for traffic flow, the Optimal Velocity (OV) model. The OV model well reproduces real traffic data of jams in several aspects, such as the critical density of jam formation, the velocity of a jam cluster, etc. where each value is almost universal. The OV model with Heaviside step function as OV-function has essentially the same properties as a realistic OV model. Recently, we have obtained exact solutions of jam flow in the model for an arbitrary number of cars N > 3 and car-density. In the solutions, the dependence on N and the density are exponentially reduced for N → ∞ $$N \rightarrow \infty $$ . This means that the properties of jams with more than about ten cars are almost the same as that of an infinite jam. This result is originated in the fact that the model is built mathematically based on the concept that traffic flow is a non-equilibrium dissipative system. This explains the universality of jam flow.

Keywords: Traffic Jams; OV Model; Traffic Flow Model; Optimal Velocity (OV); Heaviside Step-function (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:spr:sprchp:978-3-319-10629-8_60

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783319106298

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-10629-8_60

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().