Effects of On- and Off-Ramps in Cellular Automata Models for Traffic Flow

We present results on the modeling of on- and off-ramps in cellular automata for traffic flow, especially the Nagel–Schreckenberg model. We study two different types of on-ramps that cause qualitatively the same effects. In a certain density regime ρlow < ρ < ρhigh one observes plateau formation in the fundamental diagram. The plateau value depends on the input-rate of cars at the on-ramp. The on-ramp acts as a local perturbation that separates the system into two regimes: A regime of free flow and another one where only jammed states exist. This phase separation is the reason for the plateau formation and implies a behavior analogous to that of stationary defects. This analogy allows to perform very fast simulations of complex traffic networks with a large number of on- and off-ramps because one can parametrise on-ramps in an exceedingly easy way.

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