Agent-based modeling of lane discipline in heterogeneous traffic

Authored by Damian N Dailisan, May T Lim

Date Published: 2016

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2016.03.104

Sponsors: Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Development

Platforms: No platforms listed

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Mathematical description

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

Designating lanes for different vehicle types is ideal road safety-wise. Practical considerations, however, require road sharing. Using a modified Nagel Schreckenberg cellular automata model for two vehicle types (cars and motorcycles), we analyzed the interplay of lane discipline, lane changing, and vehicle density. In the absence of lane changing, the transition between free flow and congested states occurs at a higher vehicle (road occupation) density when the ratio of cars to motorcycles is increased. When lane changing is allowed, the smaller motorcycles tend to fill in unused spaces, until the point when the wider cars effectively block their way at high vehicle densities. When the condition of lane discipline is not imposed, i.e. staying wholly within lane boundaries is not required, further improvement in throughput becomes possible at the cost of required driver attentiveness. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Tags

statistical physics Cellular-automata Cars Flow Multiple-vehicle collision