A Study on Stochastic Wave Propagation Model to Generate Various Uninterrupted Traffic Flows

A class of SWP(Stochastic Wane Propagation) models microscopically mimics individual vehicles' stochastic behavior and traffic jam propagation with simplified car-following models based on CA(Cellular Automata) theory and macroscopically captures dynamic traffic flow relationships based on statistical physics. SWP model, a program-oriented model using both discrete time-space and integer data structure, can simulate a huge road network with high-speed computing time. However, the model has shortcomings to both the capturing of low speed within a jam microscopically and that of the density and back propagation speed of traffic congestion macroscopically because of the generation of spontaneous jam through unrealistic collision avoidance. In this paper, two additional rules are integrated into the NaSch model. The one is SMR(Stopping Maneuver Rule) to mimic vehicles' stopping process more realistically in the tail of traffic jams. the other is LAR(Low Acceleration Rule) for the explanation of low speed characteristics within traffic jams. Therefore, the CA car-following model with the two rules prevents the lockup condition within a heavily traffic density capturing both the stopping maneuver behavior in the tail of traffic jam and the low acceleration behavior within jam microscopically, and generates more various macroscopic traffic flow mechanism than NaSch model's with the explanation of propagation speed and density of traffic jam.