THE EFFECT OF THE HETEROGENEITY ON THE TRAFFIC FLOW BEHAVIOR

Abstract

We propose a traffic flow model which takes into account the disorder in the length and the maximal speed of cars. Using cellular automaton model in parallel dynamics we have studied the behavior of traffic flow, especially the condition of formation (active phase) and the dissociation (absorbing phase) of platoons. It is found that the transition from active to absorbing phase depend on the length of the slow vehicles L2. Indeed, the transition is discontinuous for L2 = 1 and continuous when L2 > 1. In the later case, the critical exponent is calculated near the transition density, and the space-time diagram shows the presence of the two phases. Furthermore, we have found that the fundamental diagram exhibit a plateau which depend on the size of the system.