Effect of vehicles' changing lanes in the Biham–Middleton–Levine traffic flow model

Abstract

This paper studies the effect of vehicles' changing lanes in the original Biham–Middleton–Levine traffic flow model. According to local vehicular information, the dynamics allows for vehicles changing their rows or columns. Simulation results show that the intermediate stable phase identified in the original model can be observed and maintained in a wide range of the vehicle density in our model. Some new kinds of space configurations have been first presented and discussed. One also notes that the geometric structure of such intermediate stable phases is highly regular for square and rectangular aspect rations.