USING CELLULAR AUTOMATA TO EXPLORE SPATIOTEMPORAL TRAFFIC PATTERNS

Abstract

This paper respectively simulates the emergence of traffic flow patterns for light and heavy vehicles on a two-lane freeway mainline by setting up different cellular automata (CA) rules to govern their moving forward and changing lane behaviors. Vehicular trajectories, flow-occupancy, speed-occupancy and speed-flow diagrams, and spatiotemporal traffic features under deterministic and stochastic conditions are displayed. The simulation results have revealed noticeable traffic flow patterns with free flow, wide moving jam and synchronized flow phases, which support Kerner's recent three-phase traffic theory.