A mesoscopic approach on stability and phase transition between different traffic flow states

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Data

2017-03-01

Autores

Qian, Wei-Liang [UNESP]
Wang, Bin
Lin, Kai
Machado, Romuel F.
Hama, Yogiro

Título da Revista

ISSN da Revista

Título de Volume

Editor

Elsevier B.V.

Resumo

It is understood that congestion in traffic can be interpreted in terms of the instability of the equation of dynamic motion. The evolution of a traffic system from an unstable or metastable state to a globally stable state bears a strong resemblance to the phase transition in thermodynamics. In this work, we explore the underlying physics of the traffic system, by examining closely the physical properties and mathematical constraints of the phase transitions therein. By using a mesoscopic approach, one entitles the catastrophe model the same physical content as in the Landau's theory, and uncovers its close connections to the instability of the equation of motion and to the transition between different traffic states. In addition to the one-dimensional configuration space, we generalize our discussions to the higher-dimensional case, where the observed temporal oscillation in traffic flow data is attributed to the curl of a vector field. We exhibit that our model can reproduce the main features of the observed fundamental diagram including the inverse-A, shape and the wide scattering of congested traffic data. When properly parameterized, the main feature of the data can be reproduced reasonably well either in terms of the oscillating congested traffic or in terms of the synchronized flow.

Descrição

Palavras-chave

Catastrophe model, Phase transition, Potential function, Limit circle

Como citar

International Journal Of Non-linear Mechanics. Oxford: Pergamon-elsevier Science Ltd, v. 89, p. 59-68, 2017.