An improved microscopic traffic model for heterogeneous vehicles using the vehicle's mass effect

Zehua Si; Md Anowar Hossain; Jun Tanimoto

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e16731

An improved microscopic traffic model for heterogeneous vehicles using the vehicle's mass effect

Heliyon. 2023 May 29;9(6):e16731. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e16731. eCollection 2023 Jun.

Authors

Zehua Si¹, Md Anowar Hossain¹, Jun Tanimoto^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Engineering Sciences, Kyushu University, Kasuga-koen, Kasuga-shi, Fukuoka, 816-8580, Japan.
² Kyushu University, Kasuga-koen, Kasuga-shi, Fukuoka, 816-8580, Japan.

Abstract

This study aims to develop a traffic model for heterogeneous vehicle movement, which introduces the vehicle's heterogeneity by considering the internal mass effect. We explore the behavioral characteristics of the flow field generated by the proposed model and provide a comparative analysis of the conventional model. A linear stability condition is deduced to showcase the model's capacity to neutralize flow. Nonlinear analysis is employed to derive the modified Korteweg-de Vries (mKdV) equation and its corresponding analytical solution, enabling the observation of traffic flow behavior in proximity to the neutral stability condition. A numerical simulation is then conducted, considering cyclic boundary conditions. The results indicate that the mass effect tends to absorb traffic jams provided no time delay is imposed.

Keywords: Car-following modelling; Mass effect; Stability condition; Time delay effect; Traffic jam; mKdV equation.