Self-similar behavior of a single vehicle through periodic traffic lights

✍ Scribed by Takashi Nagatani

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 356 KB
• Volume: 347
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0378-4371
• DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2004.08.007

✦ Synopsis

We study the dynamical behavior of a single vehicle moving through a sequence of traffic lights on a single-lane highway, where the traffic lights turn on and off periodically with the synchronized or green-wave strategies. The dynamical model of the vehicle controlled by traffic lights is expressed in terms of the nonlinear map. The tour time of the vehicle exhibits a complex behavior, interacting with the sequence of traffic lights. The dynamical behavior of signal traffic at a low density changes at t s ¼ l=v þ t; where l is the distance between the traffic lights, v the mean speed of the vehicle, and t the delay of traffic light at the green-wave strategy. When the cycle time t s of traffic lights is less than ðl=v þ tÞ; the vehicle exhibits the self-similar behavior, while it shows the periodic behavior for t s 4ðl=v þ tÞ: The characteristics of the self-similar behavior is clarified.