Macroscopic Simulation of Widely Scattered Synchronized Traffic States

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the wide scattering of synchronized traffic states can be reproduced through macroscopic simulations incorporating mixed vehicle types, aligning well with empirical Dutch highway data.

Contribution

It introduces a macroscopic simulation approach that accounts for vehicle diversity to replicate observed wide scattering in synchronized traffic states.

Findings

Simulation reproduces wide scattering of synchronized traffic states.

Mixed vehicle types are essential for realistic traffic state modeling.

Results agree with empirical Dutch highway data.

Abstract

Recently, a phase transition to synchronized congested traffic has been observed in empirical highway data [B. S. Kerner and H. Rehborn, Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 4030 (1997)]. This hysteretic transition has been described by a non-local, gas-kinetic-based traffic model [D. Helbing and M. Treiber, Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 3042 (1998)] that, however, did not display the wide scattering of synchronized states. Here, it is shown that the latter can be reproduced by a mixture of different vehicle types like cars and trucks. The simulation results are in good agreement with Dutch highway data.