Effect of Multi-Slowdown Sections on Traffic Flow

Based on the NS model, an extended cellular automaton model is proposed to simulate complex characteristics and energy consumption of traffic flow with some slowdown sections on a highway by considering the number, speed limit and distribution of slowdown sections. The simulation results show that the present model can exhibit a multi-phase coexistence phenomenon, i.e., the freely moving phase, the maximum flow phase and the jamming phase coexist in traffic system. The fundamental diagram shows that the number of slowdown section has no influence on the mean velocity and flow. However, energy consumption increases with increase of the number of slowdown section at low density. In addition, it can be found that the speed limit and distribution of different slowdown sections have an important effect on traffic flow and energy consumption, and the underlying mechanism is also analyzed.