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Emergent traffic jams

1995; American Physical Society; Volume: 51; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1103/physreve.51.2909

1538-4519

Kai Nagel, Maya Paczuski,

Theoretical and Computational Physics

We study a single-lane traffic model that is based on human driving behavior. The outflow from a traffic jam self-organizes to a critical state of maximum throughput. Small perturbations of the outflow far downstream create emergent traffic jams with a power law distribution P(t)\ensuremath{\sim}${\mathit{t}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}3/2}$ of lifetimes t. On varying the vehicle density in a closed system, this critical state separates lamellar and jammed regimes and exhibits 1/f noise in the power spectrum. Using random walk arguments, in conjunction with a cascade equation, we develop a phenomenological theory that predicts the critical exponents for this transition and explains the self-organizing behavior. These predictions are consistent with all of our numerical results.