Traffic flow in a Manhattan-like urban system

TL;DR

This paper presents a cellular automaton model for vehicular traffic in a Manhattan-like grid, analyzing different traffic states, structures, and the impact of traffic management strategies.

Contribution

It introduces a novel cellular automaton model incorporating origin-destination trips and traffic lights for urban traffic simulation.

Findings

Identified three distinct traffic states: moving, saturation, and deadlock.

Discovered characteristic traffic structures such as windmill-like and T-shirt-like formations.

Observed metastability during the transition from saturation to deadlock.

Abstract

In this paper, a cellular automaton model of vehicular traffic in Manhattan-like urban system is proposed. In this model, the origin-destination trips and traffic lights have been considered. The system exhibits three different states, i.e., moving state, saturation state and global deadlock state. With a grid coarsening method, vehicle distribution in the moving state and the saturation state has been studied. Interesting structures (e.g., windmill-like one, T-shirt-like one, Y-like one) have been revealed. A metastability of the system is observed in the transition from saturation state to global deadlock state. The effect of advanced traveller information system (ATIS), the traffic light period, and the traffic light switch strategy have also been investigated.