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Metastable States in Cellular Automata for Traffic Flow

R. Barlovic·L. Santen·A. Schadschneider·M. Schreckenberg
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Abstract

Measurements on real traffic have revealed the existence of metastable states with very high flow. Such states have not been observed in the Nagel-Schreckenberg (NaSch) model which is the basic cellular automaton for the description of traffic. Here we propose a simple generalization of the NaSch model by introducing a velocity-dependent randomization. We investigate a special case which belongs to the so-called slow-to-start rules. It is shown that this model exhibits metastable states, thus sheding some light on the prerequisites for the occurance of hysteresis effects in the flow-density relation.

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R. Barlovic, L. Santen, A. Schadschneider, M. Schreckenberg. 1998-04-16. Metastable States in Cellular Automata for Traffic Flow. https://doi.org/10.1007/s100510050504

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