2012/11/12 by Boris S. Kerner, Kerner, Boris S.
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #Complex Systems and Time Series Analysis #FOS: Physical sciences #Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph) #Traffic control and management #Transportation Planning and Optimization #physics.soc-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1211.2535
51 pages, 19 figures
arxiv created 2012/11/12 · openalex publication_date 2012/11/12 · arxiv updated 2012/11/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Based on numerical simulations of a three-phase traffic flow model, a probabilistic theory of traffic at the light signal is developed. We have found that very complex spatiotemporal self-organized phenomena determine features of city traffic. We have revealed that the breakdown of \it green wave in a city is initiated by the emergence of a moving synchronized flow pattern (MSP) within the green wave. It turns out that a sequence of F→S→J transitions (F -- free flow, S -- synchronized flow, J -- moving queue) lead to traffic breakdown at the light signal. Both spontaneous and induced breakdowns of the green wave have been found. From a study of a variety of scenarios for arrival traffic, we have found that there are the infinite number of capacities of traffic at the light signal, which are in a capacity range between a minimum capacity and maximum capacity; each of the capacities gives a flow rate at which under-saturated traffic is in a metastable state with respect to the transition to over-saturated traffic. The maximum capacity depends crucially on a time-dependence of the flow rate: The larger the number of vehicles that arrive the light signal during the green phase, the larger the maximum capacity.