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Coherent moving states in highway traffic

Nature volume 396, pages 738–740 (1998)Cite this article

Abstract

Advances in multiagent simulation techniques1,2,3 have made possible the study of realistic highway traffic patterns and have allowed theories3,4,5,6 based on driver behaviour to be tested. Such simulations display various empirical features of traffic flows7, and are used to design traffic controls that maximize the throughput of vehicles on busy highways. In addition to its intrinsic economic value8, vehicular traffic is of interest because it may be relevant to social phenomena in which diverse individuals compete with each other under certain constraints9,10. Here we report simulations of heterogeneous traffic which demonstrate that cooperative, coherent states can arise from competitive interactions between vehicles. As the density of vehicles increases, their interactions cause a transition into a highly correlated state in which all vehicles move with approximately the same speed, analogous to the motion of a solid block. This state is safer because it has a reduced lane-changing rate, and the traffic flow is high and stable. The coherent state disappears when the vehicle density exceeds a critical value. We observe the effect also in real Dutch traffic data.

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Figure 1: Simulated travel-time distributions for a circular one-way two-lane highway of 10 km length.
Figure 2: Numerically determined average velocities of cars (solid lines) and lorries (short-dashed lines) as a function of the overall vehicle density.
Figure 3: Dependence of desired and actual lane-changing rates and associated quantities on the overall vehicle density.
Figure 4: Mean values of one-minute averages that were determined from single-vehicle data on mixed traffic on the Dutch two-lane highway A9 on 14 subsequent days.

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Acknowledgements

D.H. thanks the DFG for support by a Heisenberg scholarship, and H. Taale and the Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management for supplying the highway data, which were evaluated by V. Shvetsov.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. II Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 57/III, Stuttgart, 70550, Germany

    Dirk Helbing

  2. Xerox PARC, 3333 Coyote Hill Road, Palo Alto, 94304, California, USA

    Bernardo A. Huberman

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  1. Dirk Helbing
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  2. Bernardo A. Huberman
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Correspondence to Dirk Helbing.

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Helbing, D., Huberman, B. Coherent moving states in highway traffic. Nature 396, 738–740 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/25499

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