IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/phsmap/v438y2015icp365-397.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The physics of empirical nuclei for spontaneous traffic breakdown in free flow at highway bottlenecks

Author

Listed:
  • Kerner, Boris S.
  • Koller, Micha
  • Klenov, Sergey L.
  • Rehborn, Hubert
  • Leibel, Michael

Abstract

Based on an empirical study of real field traffic data measured in 1996–2014 through road detectors installed on German freeways, we reveal physical features of empirical nuclei for spontaneous traffic breakdown in free flow at highway bottlenecks. A microscopic stochastic three-phase traffic model of the nucleation of spontaneous traffic breakdown presented in the article explains the empirical findings. It turns out that in the most cases a nucleus for the breakdown occurs through an interaction of one of waves in free flow with an empirical permanent speed disturbance localized at a highway bottleneck. The wave is a localized structure in free flow, in which the total flow rate is larger and the speed averaged across the highway is smaller than outside the wave. The waves in free flow appear due to oscillations in the percentage of slow vehicles; these waves propagate with the average speed of slow vehicles in free flow. Any of the empirical waves exhibits a two-dimensional asymmetric spatiotemporal structure: Wave’s characteristics are different in different highway lanes.

Suggested Citation

  • Kerner, Boris S. & Koller, Micha & Klenov, Sergey L. & Rehborn, Hubert & Leibel, Michael, 2015. "The physics of empirical nuclei for spontaneous traffic breakdown in free flow at highway bottlenecks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 438(C), pages 365-397.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:438:y:2015:i:c:p:365-397
    DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2015.05.102
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437115005245
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.physa.2015.05.102?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lily Elefteriadou, 2014. "An Introduction to Traffic Flow Theory," Springer Optimization and Its Applications, Springer, edition 127, number 978-1-4614-8435-6, June.
    2. Daganzo, Carlos & Laval, Jorge A., 2003. "On the Numerical Treatment of Moving Bottlenecks," Institute of Transportation Studies, Research Reports, Working Papers, Proceedings qt69r4t5pp, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Berkeley.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hongsheng Qi & Meiqi Liu & Lihui Zhang & Dianhai Wang, 2016. "Tracing Road Network Bottleneck by Data Driven Approach," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(5), pages 1-16, May.
    2. Junwei Zeng & Yongsheng Qian & Fan Yin & Leipeng Zhu & Dejie Xu, 2022. "A multi-value cellular automata model for multi-lane traffic flow under lagrange coordinate," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 178-192, June.
    3. Hu, Xiaojian & Lin, Chenxi & Hao, Xiatong & Lu, RuiYing & Liu, TengHui, 2021. "Influence of tidal lane on traffic breakdown and spatiotemporal congested patterns at moving bottleneck in the framework of Kerner’s three-phase traffic theory," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 584(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kerner, Boris S., 2016. "Failure of classical traffic flow theories: Stochastic highway capacity and automatic driving," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 450(C), pages 700-747.
    2. Ou, Hui & Tang, Tie-Qiao, 2018. "Impacts of moving bottlenecks on traffic flow," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 500(C), pages 131-138.
    3. Nicola Roveri & Antonio Carcaterra & Leonardo Molinari & Gianluca Pepe, 2020. "Safe and Secure Control of Swarms of Vehicles by Small-World Theory," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-28, February.
    4. Liu, Zhiyong & Li, Ruimin & Wang, Xiaokun(Cara) & Shang, Pan, 2018. "Effects of vehicle restriction policies: Analysis using license plate recognition data in Langfang, China," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 89-103.
    5. Daganzo, Carlos F. & Laval, Jorge A., 2003. "Moving Bottlenecks: A Numerical Method that Converges in Flows," Institute of Transportation Studies, Research Reports, Working Papers, Proceedings qt1hp588xx, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Berkeley.
    6. Kerner, Boris S., 2021. "Effect of autonomous driving on traffic breakdown in mixed traffic flow: A comparison of classical ACC with three-traffic-phase-ACC (TPACC)," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 562(C).
    7. Marek Drliciak & Michal Cingel & Jan Celko & Zuzana Panikova, 2024. "Research on Vehicle Congestion Group Identification for Evaluation of Traffic Flow Parameters," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-16, February.
    8. Veronika Harantová & Ambróz Hájnik & Alica Kalašová, 2020. "Comparison of the Flow Rate and Speed of Vehicles on a Representative Road Section before and after the Implementation of Measures in Connection with COVID-19," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-17, September.
    9. Niaz Mahmud Zafri & Sadia Afroj & Mohammad Ashraf Ali & Md Musleh Uddin Hasan & Md Hamidur Rahman, 2021. "Effectiveness of containment strategies and local cognition to control vehicular traffic volume in Dhaka, Bangladesh during COVID-19 pandemic: Use of Google Map based real-time traffic data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(5), pages 1-16, May.
    10. Osama ElSahly & Akmal Abdelfatah, 2022. "A Systematic Review of Traffic Incident Detection Algorithms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-26, November.
    11. Boris S. Kerner, 2016. "The maximization of the network throughput ensuring free flow conditions in traffic and transportation networks: Breakdown minimization (BM) principle versus Wardrop’s equilibria," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 89(9), pages 1-17, September.
    12. Veronika Harantová & Alica Kalašová & Simona Kubíková, 2021. "Use of Traffic Planning Software Outputs When a New Highway Section Is Put into Operation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-19, February.
    13. Hu, Xiaojian & Qiao, Longqi & Hao, Xiatong & Lin, Chenxi & Liu, Tenghui, 2022. "Research on the impact of entry points on urban arterial roads in the framework of Kerner’s three-phase traffic theory," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 605(C).
    14. Shao, Wei & Fan, Zejun & Chen, Chia-Ju & Zhang, Zhaofeng & Ma, Jiaqi PhD & Zhang, Junshan PhD, 2024. "Impact of Sensing Errors on Headway Design: From α-Fair Group Safety to Traffic Throughput," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt4k87b3sk, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    15. Kerner, Boris S., 2017. "Breakdown minimization principle versus Wardrop’s equilibria for dynamic traffic assignment and control in traffic and transportation networks: A critical mini-review," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 466(C), pages 626-662.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:438:y:2015:i:c:p:365-397. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/physica-a-statistical-mechpplications/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.