A new car-following model with consideration of roadside memorial

In this Letter, a car-following model with consideration of roadside memorial is proposed. The numerical results show that the proposed model can qualitatively describe the impacts of roadside memorial on traffic flow and the traffic risk coefficient. It is also shown that roadside memorial can enhance the traffic safety.     

Time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equation in a car-following model considering the driver’s physical delay

In this paper, an extended car-following model considering the delay of the driver’s response in sensing headway is proposed to describe the traffic jam. It is shown that the stability region decreases when the driver’s physical delay in sensing headway increases. The phase transition among the freely moving phase, the coexisting phase, and the uniformly congested phase occurs below the critical point. By applying the reductive perturbation method, we get the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau (TDGL) equation from the car-following model to describe the transition and critical phenomenon in traffic flow. We show the connection between the TDGL equation and the mKdV equation describing the traffic jam.     

Impact of the honk effect on the stability of traffic flow

In this paper, we propose an extended car-following model which takes into account the honk effect. The analytical and numerical results show that the honk effect improves the stability of traffic flow. The dependence of the stability on the properties of the honk effect is investigated in this paper.     

Effect of looking backward on traffic flow in an extended multiple car-following model

In this paper, a new car-following model is proposed by incorporating the backward looking effect under certain conditions and multiple information of preceding cars in traffic flow. And the neutral stability condition of this model can be obtained by using the linear stability theory. Numerical simulation shows that the proposed model is theoretically an improvement over previous ones.     

Continuum modeling for two-lane traffic flow

In this paper, we study the continuum modeling of traffic dynamics for two-lane freeways. A new dynamics model is proposed, which contains the speed gradient-based momentum equations derived from a car-following theory suited to two-lane traffic flow. The conditions for securing the linear stability of the new model are presented. Numerical tests are carried out and some nonequilibrium phenomena are observed, such as small disturbance instability, stop-and-go waves, local clusters and phase transition. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (70521001) The English text was polished by Yunming Chen.     

Analysis of energy dissipation in traffic flow with a variable slope

We derive the motion energy dissipation model to investigate the relation between the additional energy loss of vehicles and the slope of a gradient. Simulations are carried out to check the validity of the dissipation model. Analysis of the results shows that the total energy consumption is inversely proportional to the slope in an uphill situation and the opposite conclusion can be drawn in a downhill situation. The energy dissipation rate depends on the density of traffic and the road length in two situations in a rule. It is found that the simulation result is in good agreement with real traffic.     

Dynamic characteristics of traffic flow with consideration of pedestrians’ road-crossing behavior

Pedestrians’ road-crossing behavior can often interrupt traffic flow and cause vehicle queueing. In this paper, we propose some moving rules for modeling the interaction of vehicles and pedestrians. The modified visual angle car-following model is presented for the movement of vehicles with consideration of the lateral effect of waiting pedestrians. The pedestrians’ behavior is summarized as consisting of three steps: pedestrian arrival, gap acceptance, and pedestrian crossing. Some characteristic parameters of pedestrians are introduced to characterize pedestrians’ behavior. Simulation results show that the interaction of vehicles and pedestrians lowers the traffic capacity and increases delays to both vehicles and pedestrians.     

Numerical simulation of soliton and kink density waves in traffic flow with periodic boundaries

The soliton and kink–antikink density waves are simulated with periodic boundaries, by adding perturbation in the initial condition on single-lane road based on a car-following model. They are reproduced in the form of the space–time evolution of headway, both of which propagate backwards. It is found that the solitons appear only near the neutral stability line regardless of the boundary conditions, and they exhibit upward form when the initial headway is smaller than the safety distance, otherwise they exhibit downward form. Comparison is made between the numerical and analytical results about the amplitude of kink–antikink wave, and the underlying mechanism is analyzed. Besides, it is indicated that the maximal current of traffic flow increases with decreasing safety distance. The numerical simulation shows a good agreement with the analytical results.     

An asymmetric full velocity difference car-following model

This paper presents a car-following model that considers the asymmetric characteristic of the velocity differences of the vehicles in a traffic stream. The problems of the prevalent general force (GF) model and the full velocity difference (FVD) model were solved. Furthermore, the optimal velocity (OV) model, the GF model, and the FVD model are proved to be the special cases of the proposed asymmetric full velocity difference (AFVD) model. The mathematical model is presented, followed by simulation analysis which demonstrates the properties of the AFVD model.     

The stability analysis of the full velocity and acceleration velocity model

The stability analysis is one of the important problems in the traffic flow theory, since the congestion phenomena can be regarded as the instability and the phase transition of a dynamical system. Theoretically, we analyze the stable conditions of the full velocity and acceleration difference model (FVADM), which is proposed by introducing the acceleration difference term based on the previous car-following models (the optimal velocity model and the full velocity difference model, OVM and FVDM). By numerical simulations, it is found that when the traffic flow is unstable, the traffic jam in the FVADM is weaker than that in the FVDM. Also it is observed that the spreading speed of the jam is slower in the FVADM than that in the FVDM and the fluctuations of vehicles in the FVADM are smaller than those in the FVDM. Therefore, the acceleration difference term has strong effects on traffic dynamics and plays an important role in stabilizing the traffic flow.