Research on critical characteristics of highway traffic flow based on three phase traffic theory

Abstract In this paper, based on further development of the rules of Kerner–Klenov–Wolf (KKW) cellular automaton (CA) traffic flow model, we propose a Cellular Automaton model for single and two lane highway traffic flow in the framework of Kerner’s three-phase traffic theory. This model divides the traffic running process into two parts: speed adaption behavior under safety conditions and vehicle disturbances. The free flow, synchronized flow, wide moving jams and different first-order phases between them can be simulated. The results are verified in accordance with the fundamental hypothesis and results of the three-phase flow theory after analyzing the data measured by the virtual probe. In the lane changing possibility and road density figures, it is found that the lane changing possibility of free flow is always greater than that in the synchronized flow. And the lane changing possibility is randomly distributed in a two dimensional region which is consistent with the synchronized flow features. In the areas of the wide moving jams, the lane changing possibility is gradually reduced to 0. The results show that there is a close correlation between phase change and the significant reduction of the lane changing possibility. The lane changing behavior has the dual effect of maintaining the vehicle’s current driving state and inducing the phase transition.

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