2006/01/01 by Alexandros Sopasakis, Markos A. Katsoulakis · 1 citation
Engineering · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Stochastic processes and statistical mechanics #Theoretical and Computational Physics #Traffic control and management
paper · doi:10.1137/040617790
crossref issued 2006/01/01 · crossref published 2006/01/01 · crossref published-print 2006/01/01 · openalex publication_date 2006/01/01 · crossref created 2006/03/28 · crossref deposited 2017/01/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01 · crossref indexed 2026/08/03
A novel traffic flow model based on stochastic microscopic dynamics is introduced and analyzed. Vehicles advance based on the energy profile of their surrounding traffic implementing the "look-ahead" rule and following an underlying asymmetric exclusion process with Arrhenius spin-exchange dynamics. Monte Carlo simulations produce numerical solutions of the microscopic traffic model. Fluctuations play an important role in profiling observationally documented but, at the simulation level, elusive traffic phenomena. Furthermore, based on scaling and limit arguments we obtain a macroscopic description of this microscopic dynamics formulation which up to leading term of the expansions takes the form of integrodifferential Burgers or higher-order dispersive partial differential equations. We outline connections and comparisons of the hierarchical models presented here (microscopic, macroscopic) with other well-known traffic flow models.